Will the large townhome development at the former Parfection Park site overload Yorkville schools?

During a public hearing for the proposed townhome development at the former site of Parfection Park, Yorkville School District 115 warned the project could overload the district’s capacity for new students.

The proposal for the Fox Haven site includes redeveloping 13 acres to construct 18 townhome buildings with 105 dwelling units. Another acre would be used for commercial properties. The site is located west of Route 47, east of Green Briar subdivision, north of the Prairie Garden development, and addressed at 1115 South Bridge Street.

The site currently was the former-home of Parfection Park, which featured a golf driving range, batting cages and mini-golf.

Kreg Wesley, Yorkville School District 115’s assistant superintendent of business services, said during the public hearing at the Feb. 12 Planning and Zoning Commission meeting that, while there is value in this type of development, the district is worried about the potential influx of new students.

“We are not opposed, but our concern is the density,” Wesley said during the hearing. “The density and the timing. The school district is having issues with capacity and this is just going to contribute to this.”

The school district is planning long-term infrastructure upgrades to their facilities to mitigate some of the issues related to overcrowding in their classrooms. The fast pace of the region’s population has outgrown the current capacity of many of the district’s buildings and classrooms.

Wesley also said that his calculations show the population contribution from the townhome development proposal would be 75 new school-age children. He requested city officials to take that number into account when considering whether to approve the overall development.

The Planning and Zoning Commission recommended to city council approving the necessary rezoning and special use authorization for the project.

During the hearing, Richard Williams, an attorney representing the project’s developers, 1115, LLC, said the benefits of the townhome community outweigh some of the potential downfalls.

Williams said once fully built out, the development will generate $761,668 annually for the school district. The development is also on the hook for $471,000 in impact fees, which are provided by developers to the school district to offset any potential increases in the student population arising from the development.

“Since 2018, it’s been vacant, so we believe that this is a good transitional use of the project and we are excited to bring this to the city,” Williams said during the hearing. “We did everything we could to shift the development to the east to give the maximum amount of buffer that we could provide for Green Briar, because we really view this as a transitional neighborhood between single-family and the multi-family you have to the south already, and the commercial to the east.”

Williams said the developers met with some neighbors from the Green Briar subdivision who are opposed to the development. Many residents said they would like to see the site remain zoned for single-family only.

Williams said the development plans include amenities for the residents, including a walking path, a fair amount of open space, a future park and ample off-street visitor parking.

Construction is anticipated to take at least two years.

The current property owners, Brent and Tracy Schalhamer, along with the developers, applied for the necessary rezoning and special use authorization with the city to construct the development.

The tentative plan is to have the full townhome development project ready for a full City Council approval vote by the March 11 meeting.