Elderly couple pleads with Joliet to OK gas station plan

An elderly couple on Monday asked the Joliet City Council to approve a gas station for a piece of property that they say is draining them financially as it goes undeveloped.

Nearby residents expressed sympathy for the couple but pointed out the plan also calls for fuel pumps for trucks and sale of packaged liquor while asking the council to reject the station for the sake of their neighborhoods.

The council votes Tuesday on the plan for 2571 and 2573 Plainfield Road, an area located on the west end of the Millennium Square development in Joliet.

Millennium Square is home to a Denny’s restaurant, Auto Zone and other retailers. But the Winters’ property has gone undeveloped despite repeated efforts to market the site since 2005, Allen Winter told the council.

Winter, 91, told the council that he and his wife inherited the property but have been financially ruined by taxes that top $14,000 a year while waiting for a buyer.

“We’re wondering what the future is,” Winter said. “I can’t wait another 17 years.”

His wife, Susan Winter, said the couple had to move out of their “dream home” to a small apartment because their finances have been drained by the property taxes on the land.

“I’m getting scared, and I really would like to see this property gone,” she told the council. “I don’t think a gas station is a big deal myself.”

But neighbors do consider a gas station designed to accommodate truckers and a liquor business as a big deal.

“My heart goes out to them,” Alan Hareld said, choking back tears at times as he discussed the plight faced by the Winters.

But Hareld said the lives of people in the subdivisions that surround Millennium Square will be disrupted if the proposed gas station is approved.

“We’re talking about three subdivisions,” he said. “What is their life going to be like?”

Hareld emphasized that Millennium Square was developed with a no-alcohol provision because of the problems neighbors faced when the old Tuckaway Tavern did business on the site.

Millennium Square was annexed into Joliet with a provision that barred taverns or packed liquor sales in the development. The council now is being asked to amend the annexation agreement to allow liquor sales.

Hareld said gas-station liquor sales will lead to late-night business and the kind of problems the neighborhood had with Tuckaway Tavern.

“That,” he said, “was an absolute nightmare what was going on there.”

The city’s Zoning Board of Appeals has recommended denial of the special use permit needed to build a gas station at the site.