Growth poll (Aurora, Naperville, Peoria: estate, property taxes, hoa)

[Steve-o]

Is your town/city growing? If so, how fast? Is it losing population? Feel free to share your opinions on the growth. Do you favor it? Dislike it?

Here in Warrenville we are experiencing slow/steady growth. I think its safe to say that most of the growth occured in the mid-to-late 90's. There are still homes going up, but not on the levels they were a few years back. I liked the growth here, it brought some new businesses and entertainment to the city, as well as attracted some Fortune 500 companies (ie Navistar, BP Amoco). And strangely the housing prices didnt skyrocket (they did rise a bit though), even with the southern end of town on the Naperville border booming.

[NYrules]

I have lived in a number of areas, but I guess I will go with my current area.

After being in Orland Park for many many years I have seen the area change in many ways. In the late 70s Orland Park as well as Tinley Park was much the way areas west of Aurora now look; farmland mostly with subdivisions dotting the landscape. Trees were abundant, roads were put in place (mostly 4 lane), yet there was a lacking (few stores and restaurants) other than for a new shopping mall where a huge pig farm once was located (Orland Square). Visitors to my home would often as, "what made you move WAY out here?" LOL! Traffic would flow nicely down streets such as La Grange and 159th, rarely would you have to wait for a table at a restaurant, and school overcrowding wasn't even thought of. Water was abundant allowing residents to water their lawns whenever they wanted, and there was never bans placed on how you could use your water...

Well then the 1980s hit. Late Mayor Fred Owens ran the town with the vision to create a mecca for the south side, developing La Grange Road into a "strip" loading it to the brim with malls such as Orland Park Place Mall and restaurants such as Daniels and Mindys, yet there was no thought to widening roads or increasing other infrastructure (water mains, electric lines, etc) As more people began to frequent the area for shopping, more discovered Orland and Tinley's wide open-ness and it's Gallagher and Henry and Catchy built homes, with Hartz being more prevelant in Tinley. Homes ran for about $150K for a 4 bed, 3 bath, 2 car gar, with basement and ample size yard causing a flood of new homes to be built with no cap being placed on how many were going up. Schools were still under capacity, but were growing more and more crowded, yet families still were flocking into the area as fast as could be and business was booming everywhere in town. Stores and restaurants couldn't be built fast enough to accomodate the demand. As fast as things were being built in town such as; IHOP, AL's Diner, Papa Joes, Bakers Square, and many more; the lines at dinner time would be out the door, yet people continued to move into the area.

With the turn of the decade into the 90's Orland took a turn into an unknown territory after the death of Fred Owens. The town's new mayor set out on a mission to only allow homes to be built that were considered "presitgous" placing very strict building standards on builders encouraging developers such as Mc Naughton to move into the town and force developers of "starter" homes such as Hartz out. Mc Mansions began to dot the landscape with the advent of Silo Ridge, Crystal Tree, Grandview Estates, Spring Creek Estates, Golf View Estates, causing Orland's housing stock to begin to change in a way where it began forcing prices on homes up out of first time home buyer's ranges. With the rise in property values, a slow began to take place in the amount of homes going up, yet stores continued to move in as fast as they could causing the original owner of Orland Park Place mall to sell off the mall and allow new development to take place in the prime real-estate area creating a more "outdoor" type mall. Traffic continued to worsen throughout the town, and schools such as Sandburg became so overcrowded that the district had to quickly come up with funds to create an addition throughout the center of Sandburg creating a "new" second floor right over the center part of the school, yet residents were still moving in "lock stock and barrel" Congestion became more of a concern as long time residents were becoming more irrate as their travel times anywhere were becoming rediculosly long sometimes taking 30 minutes just to cross town from it's eastern boundary to Will Cook Road. Water was becoming scarce in the mid summer months as those huge mc mansions needed lots of water to keep those huge lawns green, causing the villages of both Orland Park and Tinley Park to institute a watering ban schedule only allowing residents to water between the hours of 7-11 AM and PM odd and even days based on your address. Yet people continued to build.

With the turn of the millenium came a whole new light to the town. Traffic by 2000 was at nearly complete grid lock everywhere to the point that fire engines could no longer get through, residents were completely fed up where many people began to sell and flee and move to towns such as New Lenox and Lockport of which had the "grass is greener" senario going for them. Home building slowed dramatically and the village's staff had to come up with ideas on how to correct the damage that they allowed to happen by overbuilding. There was simply too much development to fast with no infrastructure improvements. Roads could no longer handle traffic, schools were a complete nightmare, you would have to wait in long lines at nearly every restaurant in town, the mall was jammed all the time, water was to the point that you were told not to use it, brown outs were occuring regularly in the mid summer months, basically it was like living in NY. The town quickly decided to quiet residents down some by creating the village's property tax rebate program where it was more or less a thank you for putting up with the hassel of living in Orland Park. The town decided to send you a check for your village paid portion of your property taxes, which did quiet people down some, but not for long. By 2001 a slew of new development went in south of 159th St along La Grange Rd. bringing the intersection of 159th and La Grange to a complete standstill on the weekends. Accidents were occuring at the intersection at an alarming rate due to so many people fed up with waiting 20 minutes to get through the intersection just running the red lights and getting hit, that the village said enough is enough. Orland could wait no longer to do something, so after begging and pleading for years with IDOT to do something to alleviate the congestion and being told there was no $$$ to fix the problem, Orland began using it's retail tax base to fund the road improvement projects in town. The town put up the funds to re-do La Grange Road, and 159th Street near Rte 45 of which is now supposed to be completed this year. Also District 230 spent millions of dollars re-doing Sandburg High School increasing the building's size to accomodate more students. Numerous open spaces have been created in the town through more funds and building requirements now are extremely strict where homes have to be so far apart to reduce the too many homes in a small area senario.

Today the town is working hard to correct the problems it created for itself in the 80s and 90s with it's "build for today and worry about tommorrow tommorrow" attitude it had, and is well on it's way to correct the problems. A number of upscale restaurants have recently opened up in the town along with a lifestyle mall off 143rd Street and Rte 45 with another in the works across Rte 45 and a few new elementary level schools have opened up in recent years to reduce the number of students in each classroom.

The moral of this story is that bigger is not always better and if planning is not in place, then problems will occur later on in a town's life. For other towns, learn well from Orland and Tinley Park's mistakes. So is the town still growing? Of course, just, now it is growing more smartly.

[Steve-o]

WHOA! Thats a heck of a post! Might be the longest Ive seen on this site yet! haha Thanks for responding though. Its been amazing watching Orland Park grow. Definitely one of the fastest growing burbs around, thats for sure.

[gardener34]

In st. charles area, definitely growing - slowed recently like all. Although Kane county is doing a fairly good job at controlling the sprawl - not like will county... yikes.

We had one nearby farm sold to a developer - we assumed that would happen when we moved here 15 years ago. Took longer than we thought it would. But the properties there (saddle ridge) are not selling like hotcakes from what we can tell. The development hit the tail end of the housing boom (real nice looking homes though!). And thus did are not adding as many kids to the elementary school enrollment as quickly as they surmised per their "audit" and redistricting they had last year.

The problems with overcrowding in the school district here mostly result from the new developments in south elgin and west chicago (which advertise st. charles schools) , and the ones west of randall road. Which was also in our district 303 unbeknownst to us.

Unincorporated subdivisions in and around st. charles make up more area than the actual town. They are always trying to pass some referendum.

[Steve-o]

Originally Posted by gardener34

In st. charles area, definitely growing - slowed recently like all. Although Kane county is doing a fairly good job at controlling the sprawl - not like will county... yikes

I think STC is slowing down residentially, but seems very strong still in the commercial development area.

[gardener34]

Yeah, and they have a large industrial park area too. St. charles proper actually is pretty built up already and we are seeing some very minor teardown action. Although they houses are NOT of the mcmansions ala hinsdale that we have seen. I wonder if they have a teardown ordinance?

[Steve-o]

Originally Posted by gardener34

Yeah, and they have a large industrial park area too. St. charles proper actually is pretty built up already and we are seeing some very minor teardown action. Although they houses are NOT of the mcmansions ala hinsdale that we have seen. I wonder if they have a teardown ordinance?

Im sure there are probably parts of town that prevent teardowns, but Im not sure. Alot of commercial development on the western edge of town. In the last few years they have put up a X-Sport, the Mercedes-Benz dealer (which is adding on the west side of Randall now too), Prestige Imports, Zylstra Harley-Davidson dealer, that strip mall on 64 west of Randall, a new Aldi, that strip mall across from the McDonalds that contains Farenheit restaurant, the new Oberweis, etc. Lots of development over there.

[gardener34]

They're moving the blue goose market to along north avenue - I can envision that strip being difficult to get in and out of - hope it doesn't hurt their business. They are also redeveloping first street... it's a mess now though.

[BUalumni]

Look at a map of Dunlap(Alta), Washington, Morton, Peoria, Bloomington, and or Normal Illinois twenty years ago, and now look at a map of those areas. I am still shocked at the non stop growth in the Dunlap area, and am completely stunned at what has happened in Bloomington/Normal. Who would have guess it thirty years ago? From what I hear, similar waves of growth are being seen in Springfield, and Champaign although not to Peoria's level....yet.

To answer the post:

How fast has Dunlap grown?
Fast! The town itself has seen decent growth, adding a nice large subdivision to its borders, but nothing on the scale of what the Alta area has experienced. All the way up Knoxville in Peoria is nice mix of residential and commercial growth that reflects several eras, and then out of nowhere comes the Dunlap housing explosion. Along with this, the northern edge of Peoria has seen a nice amount of new growth with a new Jaguar, Land Rover, Lexus, BMW, Volkswagon, Saturn, Acura, Mercedes, and Hummer locations going in. Several strip malls have gone up in the area, along with a brand new outdoor mall that is quite nice. There is an attractive new theater and tons of shopping located along side the new mall towards Dunlap. Of course the chain restaurants (both fast and nice'r') have taken little time to make their precense known. A large, new hospital has been established, which only confirms that the area is destined to boom even more than it already has, as well as a regional eye care center. The highschool and library have had to expand very quickly adding on several new additions, and a second Jr. High school is nearing completion. Three new grade schools have also been built to accomodate the growth. A large new "mega" church is in the midst of all this. Of course, all of this growth has turned Dunlap into a more upscale community. The average house price has risen dramatically in just the past five years, with actual mansions popping up in several locations! (Illinois had a "Dream House" drawing for a deserving family and the house that was built is in Dunlap. If that tells you want kind of town it is becoming.) Peoria has quickly turned Dunlap's neighboring town of Mossville into downstates tech center which draws people from all over central Illinois into it everyday. No more than ten years ago, this was just a small, ag dependent little area that had limited growth in comparision to Tazewell and McClean counties. Now it seems to be the pinnacle of midwestern suburbanization.

Do I favor the growth?
LOL. Well I bought a house here didn't I!? To be honest I am not a fan at all of sprawl, which is what this really is. But like I said, the growth that the actual town has seen has more than doubled its population. If developers are going to use the Copperfield and Trails Edge subdivisions to landscape the area, than I have little problem with that. But if they choose to use some of the mid-90's box-like, vinyl sided houses than the whole area is going to look just awful in the future. Morton has done a terrific job in controlling its sprawl and I look foward to see what becomes of it in the future. Dunlap has not done this, but from what I have seen, the newest areas are looking great, and nicely crafted. I think the days of "cheap" sprawl are at an end. The real question is, how long can Peoria continue to support a community like this? How far will it end up growing? Does Peoria have the resources to attract people here so that the area doesn't end up looking like a mess? Right now it looks like that growth is not going to stop for many more years. At this rate, it looks like Dunlap and Peoria might collide within another twenty years. Something that would have been unimaginable just twenty years ago. I have heard that Chatham is to Springfield, what Dunlap is to Peoria. It will be interesting to see what happens to both towns. Peoria is one the upswing right now, so who knows what is possible in the future for the metro area?

Peoria RiverFront

Peoria, Ill.: Caterpillar’s Exports Buoy City - US News and World Report

The Peoria Area Convention and Visitors Bureau

Peoria Riverfront Museum

Peoria Illinois, City Of Peoria, Peoria Illinois Restaurant, Peoria Illinois Airport

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[Steve-o]

Thanks for sharing! I havent been down in that area in awhile, Ill need to take some time this spring/summer/fall and see it firsthand.