Joliet City Council makes NorthPoint wait on annexation, warehouse plan

The Joliet City Council on Tuesday voted to put off a decision sought by NorthPoint Development for two months, a delay that raised the spirits of opponents of the massive industrial project.

“I think we’ll take it,” Stephanie Irvine, a vocal opponent of NorthPoint, said after the council meeting. “I think it definitely shows the times are changing in Joliet. It’s not, ‘We’re going to do whatever NorthPoint wants.’”

NorthPoint wanted city approval to annex of 17 acres to accommodate plans to build a cold-storage warehouse in the area along Route 53 where the developer has started construction for an industrial park that is designed to grow beyond 2,000 acres.

What it got was a unanimous vote by the City Council, including members who in the past have been yes votes for the project, to table a decision until Jan. 16.

Rival industrial developer CenterPoint Properties got the same treatment Tuesday. The council also voted unanimously to table until Jan. 16 a vote on a zoning change sought by CenterPoint for development of an intermodal terminal at 4001 Brandon Road.

It wasn’t clear whether the votes marked a change in attitude at City Hall toward trucking-related business development or a strategic move in litigation that includes the city, NorthPoint and CenterPoint.

“I need to understand better what this whole project is going to be like in five, 10, 20 years down the road.”

—  Terry D'Arcy, Joliet mayor

Council member Suzanna Ibarra, who made the motion to table the NorthPoint vote for 60 days, said after the meeting, “I would rather have gone until the litigation is finished.”

Mayor Terry D’Arcy repeatedly referred to the litigation at a Monday workshop meeting when he voiced his own reluctance to support the NorthPoint annexation plan.

He would not talk after the Tuesday meeting on what effect the 60-day delay may have on the litigation.

Instead, D’Arcy said he wants a better understanding of the long-term impact of the NorthPoint project.

“I need to understand better what this whole project is going to be like in five, 10, 20 years down the road,” D’Arcy said.

D’Arcy and Ibarra were elected in April and took office in May, long after the larger NorthPoint project received council approval.

D’Arcy made other comments during the Tuesday meeting suggesting the city needs to take a new look at the warehouse industry that has been the mainstay of economic development in Joliet for 20 years.

The mayor said the city needs to take a closer look at air pollution caused by the trucking industry, echoing a concern that has been raised at times by residents opposed to NorthPoint and other warehouse developers but has never before been voiced by city officials.

“It’s time we figure out what’s in the air that we’re breathing based on the exhaust of the semis,” D’Arcy said during a Council Comments section of the meeting in which council members have free range to voice opinions. “I think that’s a really important thing that we push into.”

Earlier in the meeting, NorthPoint attorney Thomas Osterberger defended the developer against comments made by residents calling for the city to slow down warehouse development. Osterberger pointed to hundreds of thousands of property tax dollars generated as large warehouses are built.

“To vilify an industry when we don’t have tax revenue coming from elsewhere is foolish,” Osterberger said.

But for at least Tuesday night, opponents of continued warehouse development felt they had gained some ground.

“I wish they would have voted it down,” Jackson Township Supervisor Matt Robbins, another outspoken opponent of NorthPoint, said after the meeting. “But it’s better than nothing.”