About five years ago the owner/developer of what was then known as “Executive Office Plaza” (“EOP”) sought a map amendment to the City’s Zoning Code to change that property’s classification from B-1 to R-5, in order to construct 168 residential condominium units there.

The neighbors mobilized to oppose that effort, objecting to the height and density of those structures.  We here at PublicWatchdog joined in those objections.  But the City’s Planning & Zoning Commission recommended that change, and then-mayor Howard “Let’s Make A Deal” Frimark and his City Council alderpuppet majority approved that recommendation for reasons that remain suspect to this day.

The recession, however, turned the condo market sour; and the developer – Park Ridge 2004, LLC – abandoned its EOP condo plan.

Now that same developer is back, this time with a plan for a Whole Foods grocery instead of 168 condos.  For this project, however, it needs to reverse the zoning back from R-5 to B-1.

And guess what?  Many of those very same folks who beefed about the residential development five years ago are beefing about this retail development.  This time, however, their main complaints are increased vehicle traffic and “grave concerns” about safety – primarily for the children who walk to St. Paul of the Cross school.

We’re grateful for these complaints.  You should be, too: that’s how this re-zoning process is supposed to work, protecting the community as a whole from willy-nilly land development deals intended primarily to put money in the pockets of profiteers with little concern for the long-term health of the community. 

But after listening to all the arguments raised against this zoning change, we think the objectors need to regain their credibility in opposing a project that we get a sense the vast majority of Park Ridge residents want.  To that end, we offer the following suggestions: 

1.  If you’re going to beef about the Traffic Impact Study done by the developer’s consultants, (KLOA, Inc.), you had better have a competing study of your own.  Because just scoffing at KLOA’s findings and conclusions isn’t going to get you very far.

2.  In that same vein, where is your data proving that the traffic-light regulated intersections of Washington & Touhy and Washington & NW Hwy already are unreasonably hazardous?  The IDOT records cited in the KLOA report identify a cumulative total of 19 accidents at those two intersections in the past 5 years, only 1 involving a pedestrian – and none of which produced a fatality or incapacitating injury.  It seems like you’ve got a better chance of being hit in the Jewel or Dominick’s parking lot than at those intersections, so how “scary” and “deadly” – two terms we’ve heard used to describe those intersections – can they really be?

3.  Don’t try to tell Whole Foods or the developer that the former Napleton car dealership site at Greenwood and Busse (across from the Jewel), or any other site in town, would be a “better” location.  If either of them actually believed it, and if those alternate properties actually were available at a comparable price, you can be certain that’s where they’d already be looking.

4.  Don’t argue for new office buildings at Touhy and Washington.  Seven years of vacant office buildings on that site is Exhibit A for the folly of believing a high demand for office space on that site currently exists. 

5.  Don’t buy into the argument that Whole Foods will either fail or cause one of our other existing grocery stores to fail.  That very well may be true, but City government has no business substituting its bureaucratic judgment for that of the marketplace when it comes to things like retail competition.  And a self-proclaimed Libertarian like Ald. Jim Smith (3rd) should know better than to suggest otherwise.

So if you NIMBYs want to make this process as good as it can be, you’ve got to raise your game a couple of notches as this issue enters its stretch drive.

And talking about raising one’s game, the City Council and Staff had better raise their own games several notches when it comes to the rumored request/demand by the developer and/or Whole Foods for tax breaks as a condition of the development moving forward. 

Let’s start by calling those kinds of requests/demands what they are: legalized extortion.

Before the City Council even begins to considers bribing this particular developer and this particular retailer with already-scarce tax dollars, it had better also figure out how it’s going to do the same for all the other developers and retailers already here, or who may come here in the future.  Because one thing this City owes everybody – businesses and residents alike – is a fair shake and a level playing field.

Neither the developer nor the retailer need or deserve corporate welfare from the City’s taxpayers when their City government, despite wisely cutting expenses and non-essential services to an unprecedented degree, still faces million dollar deficits in the coming years because of its latest corporate welfare boondoggle: the Uptown TIF.  That lesson should already have been learned, in spades.

And we don’t need to do business with bait-and-switch artists.  If Park Ridge 2004 LLC really wants to develop that property, and if Whole Foods really wants to be in Park Ridge, then the economics of the deal are what they are – take ‘em or leave ‘em.  And if they are going to leave ‘em, then they should do so now, before the City squanders any more time, money, effort and resident good-will walking down a dead-end street.

As a community, we definitely have our challenges – which makes it all that much more important that we also have our principles.

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