I am very active in my local Audubon Society chapter, Prairie Woods Audubon. One of our proudest accomplishments is the acquisition and continued maintenance of a 7.5 acre virgin prairie in Palatine, IL known as Palatine Prairie. Although Prairie Woods assisted in the funds needed to purchase the property, the actual owners are the Palatine Park District and the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago.
Join me for the story of our recent fight for this little slice of prairie heaven after the jump ...
Like many of the established suburbs of Chicago, Palatine has developed nearly every piece of open land within its borders, so the prairie is a real treasure. Palatine has begun to approve multi-story development since the community can no longer annex open space outside the village boundary. These 6 to 8-story buildings are out of character with the rest of the village, and have been somewhat controversial.
A 7-story building, with underground parking, was proposed for a site directly adjacent to the prairie last summer (check out this panorama view of the prairie and scroll to the right, the 7-story building would replace the first existing buildings and trailers that you see). This was a concern to those of us who support the prairie for three main reasons: shadow from the building would encroach on the sun-loving prairie early in the afternoon every day, the underground parking garage would change the water table and surface-water runoff onto the prairie would be drastically increased due to near 100% impervious surfaces (roads, parking, buildings) on the proposed site.
Fortunately, Prairie Woods had the foresight to apply for Illinois Nature Preserve status for the prairie about 10 years ago. The Illinois Nature Preserves Act affords some protection to sites designated as a preserve, and the fact that a state-endangered plant is on the site also helped, but since the prairie itself was not going to be developed, the level of this protection was a little hazy.
Members of Prairie Woods, including myself, met with the developers to express our concerns on two occasions before they went to the village. Representatives from the park district and nature preserves commission were also there. The developers had hired an environmental consultant, and it soon became clear that our concerns were not going to be addressed adequately.
Prairie Woods hired Dr. Gerould Wilhelm as our environmental consultant. Dr. Wilhelm is a legend in the Illinois environmental community and the co-author of the definitive Plants of the Chicago Region. Prairie Woods also enlisted the help of similarly-minded groups including the local Sierra Club chapter, restoration groups etc.
The proposal went before the Palatine planning commission on Nov. 7, 2006. We had a huge turnout and many people spoke in opposition with the meeting going beyond midnight. The planning commission rejected the proposal on a 6-2 vote (WooHoo!). However, the village board is notorious for overruling the planning commission, so our fight was far from over. The village board heard the proposal on Dec. 18, 2006. Again we had a huge turnout and many spoke up in opposition, once again, the meeting ran to midnight to accommodate all the people who wanted to speak (meeting minutes).
It became pretty obvious that the board was not going to accept the proposal as submitted. The developer practically begged for another chance, and the village board essentially kicked the can down the road and agreed to allow the developer to modify their plans, an unprecedented step. The (slightly) revised proposal was supposed to be on the agenda for the village board meeting on Monday, Jan. 15, 2007, but our efforts have been successful and the proposal was pulled off the table!!!
We are not out of the woods yet as this developer could come up with a smaller building or another proposal could be put forth for the property, but we are very excited that our efforts were successful. The contacts we made and the sense of community developed by the many groups that put forth efforts to stop this development should help all of us in future.