City All But Rejects Evergreen Farms Proposal

Yorkville aldermen are poised to reject a special use permit to allow contractors to fill uncontaminated dirt from the Route 47 road expansion project on 46 acres off Fox Road west of town.

Aldermen voted Tuesday to have the city attorney prepare an ordinance denying D Construction Management’s request for Evergreen Farms Estates, which sits east of Pavilion Road both north and south of Fox Road. Because , aldermen would have had to approve the application with a two-thirds majority vote.

Aldermen are expected to vote on the ordinance at their next meeting May 8.

The crowd filled the City Council Chambers seats, with a few people standing in the back and no residents speaking in favor of the proposal. Residents were concerned about traffic and safety on Fox Road, the effect on property values and the possible contamination of residential wells in the area.

Construction managers wanted to put up to 60,000 cubic yards of dirt from various areas of Route 47 on various areas of the Evergreen Farms Property. The traffic would vary from 25 loads a day up to 60, but company representatives said the trucks would blend in with the 4,500 vehicles or so that travel that road daily.

The Route 47 project includes removing the retaining wall and much of the hill near the former Kendall County Courthouse on Madison Street, so some truck traffic is inevitable.

“As part of that project on Route 47, that material has to be placed on trucks and hauled off,” said Pete Huinker of H.R. Green, an engineering firm representing D Construction. “This (Evergreen Farms) project is not creating this truck traffic. That traffic is going to be there; it’s just a matter of where.”

But aldermen criticized state oversight of the project and the effect on traffic. Ward 4 Alderman Rose Spears said Fox Road sees bikers and joggers and is more heavily used since the River Road bridge was closed.

Both Spears and Ward 1 Alderman Carlo Colosimo expressed doubt in the process for determining what material was clean enough to be sent to the Evergreen Farms Estates site.

Essentially, specialists would establish “impact zones” of material that could not be sent there by testing soil during the Route 47 project’s planning stages. Then the specialists would monitor the workers during construction. No tests would be done on the trucks headed for Evergreen Farms Estates after individual trucks had been loaded.

“These impact zones are set by the state of Illinois, whom I don’t really trust,” Colosimo said.

Editor's note: The property discussed here is adjacent, but not associated with, the Evergreen Farm produce stand.  For more information, .