Yacht Club not sold on Johnsburg settlement letter on boat storage dispute

A letter from the Johnsburg Village Board was written in hopes of settling its dispute with the Pistakee Yacht Club, Village President Ed Hettermann said.

“It has been our effort all along to come up with something both sides could agree on,” Hettermann said after a unanimous vote by the village this week to approve the letter, which followed a closed-door meeting. Based on an initial response from the yacht club’s vice president, however, the letter does not seem to bring the two sides closer together.

It has been our effort all along to come up with something both sides could agree on.”

—  Ed Hettermann, Johnsburg village president

The yacht club and the Johnsburg Village Board have been at loggerheads since last summer, when an anonymous complaint was made to the village about the club’s backlot, used since at least 1970 for boat storage. The disputed property lies across a street from the yacht club’s clubhouse at 3300 N. Rocky Beach Road.

In the months since, the yacht club and the village have argued over a 1970 variance granted by McHenry County. The yacht club claims that variance allows it to store boats on the lot in an area otherwise zoned residential. The village has indicated it believes the variance was improperly approved. Each has sued the other in McHenry County courts.

The village letter, provided to the Northwest Herald via a Freedom of Information request, states that it is a response to correspondence from Laura King, the yacht club’s vice-commodore. King’s letter, forwarded to the village on Feb. 27, lays out a proposal for maintaining the storage lot and requests that the village reaffirms the club’s 1970 variance.

The village’s letter states Johnsburg is “unable to agree to the Yacht Club’s terms as proposed” and the “purported variance ... is not possible as the purported variance is not valid.”

Though the nonprofit Yacht Club’s board had not yet met to discuss any counteroffer or response at the time of King’s comments, King said the letter does not appear to move the two any closer together. “We are disappointed the village is refusing to recognize the variance granted by McHenry County, affirmed by the village of Sunnyside in 1991 as part of the annexation agreements that created the formation of what we know as Johnsburg today,” King wrote in a text to the Northwest Herald.

“We don’t understand why the validity of our longstanding property usage rights are in question. We continue to be hopeful that we can continue to work together to reach a cooperative resolution,” King wrote.

Sunnyside – which had previously annexed the yacht club property – merged with Johnsburg to create a single village. Minutes from a November 1991 special meeting noted that Sunnyside’s goal for newly annexed county property “was to try to give the people the same type of zoning they already had with the county,” according to minutes provided by King.

Which side must show the variance is or is not correct may be the largest sticking point. Village Attorney Michael Smoron indicated that Illinois case law puts the onus on property owners to prove that a non-conforming structure is in fact a legal use. The yacht club’s attorney, Tyler Wilke, argues that “any ambiguity in the (zoning) verbiage must be found in favor of the landowner,” according to correspondence he has sent to the village.

That take seems to be in opposition to a zoning ordinance change also approved by the Johnsburg board Monday night. On a 5-2 vote, with trustees Joshua Hagen and Mike Fouke dissenting, the board passed a resolution that increase fines for zoning violations from $25 to $200 a day, and place the burden of proof for zoning issues on the property owner.

The two sides meet in court again on April 4. No arguments are scheduled for that day.