Johnsburg yacht club, sailing school ‘fighting for the future’ amid zoning conflict with village

The board chairman of the Community Sailing School at Pistakee Yacht Club in Johnsburg sent an email to the nonprofit’s 800-person contact list Thursday evening encouraging them to attend the next Johnsburg Village Board meeting.

That same night, Johnsburg’s board meeting was moved from Tuesday, Feb. 20, to Thursday, Feb. 22, Assistant Village Administrator Vinny Lamontagna said. The new date was posted to the village’s website Friday afternoon, and its agenda should be posted by end of day Tuesday, Lamontagna said.

At stake at the meeting, according to the Pistakee Yacht Club and officials from the sailing school, are the organizations’ futures.

The two groups have been battling the village since March, when an anonymous complaint indicated that the 127-year-old nonprofit was illegally storing boats on its property.

The sailing school and yacht club are “fighting for the future of the Pistakee Yacht Club. If it does not have boats on its property, it will be closed in a couple of years. We will not have a sailing school,” Tom Kartheiser, chairman of the sailing school board, said at the Feb. 14 Planning and Zoning Commission meeting.

This is about a text amendment. This applies to the entire village.”

—  Steven Dixon, Johnsburg Planning and Zoning commissioner

At that meeting, the commission gave its nod of approval to a zoning ordinance amendment that increases the fine for code enforcement violations from $25 to $200 per day. It also requires a property owner to prove a nonconforming use of a structure is legal.

The yacht club and the village are currently in court. Both have countersued, with the yacht club saying it received a variance from McHenry County allowing it to store boats on land adjacent to the club at 3300 N. Rocky Beach Road.

In its countersuit, the village of Johnsburg claims that the 1970 variance does not give the yacht club the ability to store sailboats on the lots without a building for them.

According to the county’s variance, the yacht club may “use and develop the said premises for private club parking and recreational purposes and to erect storage facilities for small boats.”

Johnsburg’s countersuit goes on to say the resolution “provides expressly that any boat storage is conditional upon the erection of storage facilities for small boats, which have never been undertaken, much less completed.”

The yacht club has allowed members to store sailboats on the property as part of the membership amenities, its leadership said.

If approved by the Village Board at a future meeting, the increased daily fine, combined with the new burden of proof that it does, indeed, have the right to store boats there may be too much for the yacht club to overcome, Kartheiser said.

If the members cannot store sailboats at the property, they will leave the group, Kartheiser said, adding that that would shut down the club permanently.

The text amendments approved Wednesday night are “not about the yacht club,” said Curt Larsen, planning and zoning chairman.

The increased fine is about residents “with an abundance of stuff laying around on their yards,” Larsen said.

In the past, when residents are fined for an ordinance violation, they have paid the fines and continued to store property illegally, village attorney Michael Smoron said.

Commissioner Steven Dixon said he was unaware of the conflict between the yacht club and the village, but that it had nothing to do with the planning commission.

“This is about a text amendment. This applies to the entire village,” Dixon said.

According to the yacht club’s pleadings in court, “none of the village’s ordinances apply to the property,” Smoron said. “According to their counsel, none of this applies anyway.”

The zoning ordinance amendment endorsed by the commission next goes to the Village Board for final approval.