Moraine Hills State Park is getting a new parking lot, but officials don’t really want you to use it

A new access point is coming to Moraine Hills State Park near McHenry – but you won’t find it on any park map.

A parking under construction along Nunda Township’s Steuben Road on the northern edge of the state park will create the access point, which, park Superintendent Jacob Shurpit said he hopes will address some problems that have crept up in the area.

Nearby residents, however, believe the parking lot is creating other problems.

One of the issues Shurpit cited is unapproved park entrance points. Over the years, residents in the area have cut holes in a wire fence along the park’s edge to gain access. In one case, someone even installed an unauthorized gate in the fence, Shurpit said.

He’s been talking with Nunda Township Highway Supervisor Mike Lesperance about the parking lot and point access since at least March 23. That’s when a Shurpit dated a IDNR Comprehensive Environmental Review Process memo outlining the benefits of the new lot.

“The Nunda Township Road District has agreed to assume all costs as the trailhead will serve their constituents’ needs and will mitigate the need to design and develop a walking/bike bike path down (South) Lily Lake Road to safely enter the park at other trailheads,” Shurpit wrote in the IDNR document.

In the future they can know when it is safe and not safe to come into the park.”

—  Jacob Shurpit, Moraine Hills State Park superintendent

Constituents, however, were surprised to discover that a 12-car parking lot was going in on their street. They found out in mid-September, when crews who had been rebuilding their street started excavating for it.

There were no public hearings or letters informing them a parking lot was coming, residents said.

In protest, a neighbors signed a petition asking for the work to stop and attended the Nunda Township Board of Trustees meeting on Sept. 14 meeting.

At the meeting, township trustees said they had no information on the new lot. The township board also said, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, that it has no documentation on how the work was approved or funded.

The day after the Nunda Township board meeting, an inspector from the McHenry County Department of Planning & Development went out to Steuben Road to see the under-construction parking lot.

Officially, the parking lot land is in township right of way and is an extension of Sumac Avenue, McHenry County Planning Director Adam Wallen said.

The one-block long Sumac Avenue connects Steuben to Landl Park Road. Because the township owns that right of way, no building permits or zoning changes were needed for the lot, Wallen said.

“Because it is a platted right of way, it is outside the jurisdiction of the (county) zoning ordinance,” Wallen said.

Nunda Township did need a stormwater permit, however. The lot “goes beyond the minimal threshold for requiring a stormwater management permit,” Wallen said.

That permit was applied for on Sept. 22 and was later approved, Wallen said.

A Freedom of Information response from the Nunda Township Highway Department included a hand-drawn outline of the proposed lot, construction documents, and handful of emails. It did not include any budget information or approvals to expand the pavement Nunda Township maintains. Lesperance also has not responded to multiple interview requests.

No approvals were needed from the IDNR, Shurpit said, as it does not control the parking lot.

“We provided access to the park” but had no role in approval or construction, he said.

As the lot is not on IDNR land, it will not be included in any maps for Moraine Hills, Shurpit said. “It is not park property. We are not designating that for the public to use.”

Besides hoping to dissuade neighbors from creating their own access to the park, Shurpit said the parking lot provides a spot for a new informational kiosk, eliminates the need to build a sidewalk on Lily Lake Road and gives park employees improved access to unimproved trails, Shurpit said.

IDNR will install a paved path at the lot and a gate to control access, he said.

His main point of concern was the uncontrolled access.

“The history with the neighborhood over there ... a large majority were creating access points from their backyard to the park,” Shurpit said. That uncontrolled access caused issues during hunting season and prescribed burns “where kids and families were accessing from private property and walking into this stuff.”

The new access point will provide a spot to post notifications.

“In the future, they can know when it is safe and not safe to come into the park,” Shurpit said.

Shurpit sent a “cease and desist” letter to residents who the agency says created gaps in the fence for access in fall 2020.

Those “illegal access points” do not help the park’s goal of preserving endangered species in the park, he said.

It is at some level also unfair, because other communities near the park had that kind of access, Shurpit said.

Other communities, he said, would see a new access point as a benefit.

“I don’t understand their perspective. There is a lot of residents who were accessing it. They don’t want others to have that same privilege,” Shurpit said.