Should the City of Park Ridge approve any significant new land development that might contribute to the flooding problem the City already is experiencing?

That’s a question that sure seems to be on the mind of some of our residents in response not only to the 400 W. Talcott development but also to Lexington Homes’ proposed townhouse plan for the old public works site at Greenwood and Elm; and to a proposed assisted living facility by DK Acquisitions for the old car dealership site on Greenwood between Busse and Northwest Highway.

According to an article in the Park Ridge Herald-Advocate (“Townhouses planned for old Park Ridge public works land,” Feb. 10), the old public works project will hold as many as 25 townhouses in 5 separate buildings, with an average price of $425,000 per unit. Nevertheless, the H-A article reports that “a civil engineer associated with the development” said the site “will include stormwater detention…[for] more than 80 percent of the water that falls on the property.”

Does anybody actually believe that 80% figure?

And if so, under what kinds of rains? Ten-year storms? One hundred year storms? Or just your average April shower?

We can’t find anything in the voluminous printed materials for this project on the City’s website that answers those questions, or even confirms that 80-percent figure. Which is troubling, given how water retention would appear to be the single most important question for that low-elevation area where flooding is such a chronic problem. Frankly, in that area we have to question why 100% detention isn’t required.

Meanwhile, just across the tracks and also on Greenwood, the planned four-story assisted-living facility and separate retail building has been approved by P&Z even though the residential building is 12 feet taller than the City’s Zoning Code permits. That height troubled Commissioner Linda Coyle, who wondered whether the developer could lop off the top floor. But according to architect Andrew Koglin – whose firm designed the Residences & Shops of Uptown – that would reduce the number of beds to the point where the project would not be “economically viable.”

If the Code’s height requirement makes any sense at all, what justifies a 12 foot departure – more than 25% – from the reported 40-foot limit? According to the H-A article (“Plan for new assisted living facility heads to City Council,” Feb. 11), P&Z chairman Joe Baldi indicated that the location could accommodate “a building that’s a little bit tall.”

That’s the kind of subjective one-off thinking that makes development in Park Ridge an unpredictable crap-shoot. And it also makes the City more susceptible to the kind of lawsuit filed by the developer of 400 Talcott, where P&Z and the City Council over-reached the Zoning Code to achieve a popular (with the neighbors) but legally-unjustified result.

Interestingly enough, the H-A article on that assisted-living facility project mentions nothing about the project’s plans for water retention and/or run-off, so we have to wonder whether the 25%+ height departure is P&Z’s only concession.

We’re not anti-development. We also believe that a property owner has the right to use his/her property in any way the law allows – even if we would prefer more retail and commercial, or green space, over more multi-family residential and the increase in population density.

But as we’ve said before, there are good reasons why we have a Zoning Code, and one of them is predictability – for the benefit of developers, the property’s neighbors and the City’s elected, appointed and employed officials who administer it.

Arbitrary departures from Code requirements are bad policy and set bad precedent.

And in these two cases, they also may make flooding worse.

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