ODAM Law

Commissioners OK Strawberry Creek plan

6th December 2002

Commissioners OK Strawberry Creek plan

Date: 12/6/2002

Kenosha News Staff

KENOSHA NEWS 

Developers of the Strawberry Creek subdivision, which will feature a golf course surrounded by neighborhood housing, found themselves in the rough Thursday after the City Plan Commission nearly prevented them from getting to the first tee.

Eventually commissioners voted to approve the preliminary plat for the golf course, 325 single-family lots and 600 multifamily residential units, as well as a small commercial parcel.

However, their approval came only after the commission voted to undo an earlier action that would have left the developers with a plan but no place to put it.

Two years in the planning, the preliminary plans drew a packed room to the commission meeting, including Bristol residents who own neighboring properties abutting the 383-acre former Thompson's strawberry farm north of Highway 50 and east of Highway MB.

The land west of I-94 was annexed into the city two years ago.

After a recommendation to approve a needed amendment to the city's land use agreement with Bristol initially failed due to a 4-4 tie vote, Barry Shiffman of Edelberg-Shiffman Development LLC, who is developing the golf course and surrounding infrastructure, including internal roads and drainage projects, appeared stunned and shaken.

``I'm up here surprised, confused. I don't know what else we can do,'' Shiffman said twothirds of the way through a three-hour public hearing on the proposal.

His comments echoed those of Michael McTiernan, a Kenosha attorney representing the developers, when McTiernan addressed the commission on the preliminary plat, which was next in order on the meeting agenda.

``I'm concerned. I'm amazed,'' McTiernan said. ``We're filing a neighborhood plat that there is no neighborhood plan for it to go into.''

He asked the commission to provide some direction for his clients, saying they had presented their proposal according to guidelines and recommendations made by staff in the city's Department of Development.

But commissioner Iris Helman, who chaired the meeting in Mayor John Antaramian's absence, said she didn't recall revisions to the plans from earlier concepts presented to the commission.

However, fellow commissioner Julie Hein, who voted in favor of approval, took those who voted against it to task.

``This is exactly what I recall,'' she told the others. ``I think we're way off base.''

McTiernan said the group had presented nearly identical plans twice in the past two years, and none of the commissioners had raised concerns similar to those raised Thursday, namely regarding questions about density, road alignment and access to a park planned for the larger area.

He said the only changes came at the recommendation of planners in the city's Department of Development, which Ray Forgianni, who heads the department, acknowledged.

Several neighboring residents wanted assurance that drainage issues had been addressed adequately. They got that assurance from engineer Robert Cowhey, of Cowhey Gundmundson Leder Ltd, an Illinois firm hired by Shiffmann to plan drainage systems.

Cowhey said stormwater runoff, which will be managed via Strawberry Creek, which bisects the golf course running north to south, and a series of detention ponds doing double duty as water hazards. He said underground drain tiles for septic systems also were accounted for in their plans.

Shiffman said his company has spent $250,000 already in the drainage planning. He said the golf course and infrastructure probably will cost upward of $30 million to complete. The figure does not include housing units, which will be developed by commercial builders and individual property owners, depending on the parcels involved.

After a short recess, commissioner Sharon Acerbi moved to reconsider the earlier vote against amending the land use plan, with the item separated into three issues. The planned road alignment and a minor density exception passed on 7-1 votes.

The alignment of a planned ``linear'' park passed 5-3.

Afterward, Shiffman said he was relieved. A delay could have set the project back to 2004.

``The primary concern for a delay in growing a golf course is it takes time and it's seasonal. We need to be on track to break ground in the spring,'' he said.