Get ready for another growth spurt

In Yorkville, new developments on south side expected to double population

By Heather Gillers
Staff Writer

KENDALL TOWNSHIP – Four years ago, electrician Jim Richter bought a house in a quiet cornfield off Route 47. When he moves out this fall, hundreds of homes will sprout from the soil. They’ll represent only a fraction of the development ahead.

Within the next 10 years, six subdivisions planned outside the city’s existing southern boundary are expected to cover 2,000 acres and house about 11,600 new residents – more people (by a few hundred) than now live in Yorkville.

“Right now Yorkville is a desirable place to e,” said Mayor Art Prochaksa. “The south is now the area we’re going.”

Prochaksa expects minimal impact on Yorkville taxpayers once the new homes become part of the city, since a combination of impact agreements and commercial tax revenue will help fund city services for the influx of residents.

A second, southern high school will be built with developers’ contributions, said School Superintendent Dr. Thomas Engler, who expects deals on two elementary schools to follow. Construction of a middle school is already in progress.

The new neighborhoods are also expected to include more than 150 acres of stores and restaurants along Route 47, increasing the city’s sales tax revenue. Meanwhile, the schools would collect real estate taxes without the accompanying expense of new students.

Yorkville officials say the magnitude of the project – nearly 4,000 homes are slated for construction – makes it possible to finance the necessary miles-long extensions of city sewer and water lines. Moreover, said Development Director Travis Miller, the fact the six developers are working simultaneously allows the city to make big-picture plans for the new neighborhoods, rather than accept a hodgepodge of scattered park and school sites.

The developers’ plans are under review by the City Council, which must give preliminary approval and agree to annex the new subdivisions before the builders break ground. Once the new homes are built, the city’s southernmost point would shift from just south of Legion Road to Caton Farm Road, which Prochaksa envisions as Yorkville’s permanent southern border.

“We’re not out to grab up the world,” he said.

Still, in the portion of Kendall Township slated for annexation, some residents are not looking forward to the change.

“Seems like overnight we went from a small nice little town to another Naperville,” said Rick Johnson, who built his house on Caton Farm Road seven years ago, when Yorkville had 6,200 residents.

City officials have taken steps to retain some of the character of the old farmland, asking developers to echo older houses’ architecture and to leave some open space.

But the city’s control over its southern outskirts is limited, Prochaksa said. Yorkville could chose not to endorse new subdivisions, but they might go up anyways and annex to Joliet.

The question facing the City Council is not whether Kendall will remain farm land, he said, but “will it develop part of another community?”

Richter, the electrician, doesn’t mind the fact that his town is likely to double in size. He’s helping wire a partially built subdivision up the road, and he knows growth is good for business.

But he'll be long gone by the time the newer developments go up.  He's moving into a new house farther south, just outside the Morris city limits.

05/18/06