Golf course proposal lands in rough
Homewood planners vote unanimously against warehouse zoning for property
Homewood’s Village Board is scheduled to vote Tuesday on whether to rezone the former Calumet Country Club to allow development of warehouses.
The meeting comes after the village’s Planning and Zoning Commission voted unanimously Thursday against the proposal, sending its negative recommendation to the Village Board.
“I have seen much better plans come in for much smaller projects,” Zoning Chairman Fred Sierzega told developers. “You guys didn’t do any homework” to gauge the temperature of residents. Commissioners held five meetings on the matter and heard some 20 hours of testimony and public comments, including impassioned pleas from residents that the site, although privately owned, remain open green space.
Arizona-based Diversified Partners paid $3.3 million for the golf course, northwest of 175th Street and Dixie Highway, and is also seeking from Homewood creation of a tax increment financing district for the property.
Walter Brown Jr., Diversified’s CEO, did not respond Friday to a request for comment.
No Homewood residents spoke in favor of the proposal, and many cited concerns about increased truck traffic, air pollution and declining property values. Those who attended Thursday’s meeting applauded following the commission’s vote.
“I don’t see where the positive of this deal is,” Commissioner Seth Bransky said before voting. “This deal stinks like stagnant water in a detention pond.”
During a Wednesday meeting lasted more than seven hours, residents from Homewood and nearby communities asked commissioners to vote against the rezoning.
Liz Varmecky, a Homewood resident with the recently formed South Suburbs for Greenspace Over Concrete, cited a possible domino effect, with Ravisloe
Country Club in Homewood and Park District owned Coyote Run Golf Course in neighboring Flossmoor possibly in line for similar redevelopment.
“These contribute to making Homewood and Flossmoor a gem of the south suburbs,” Varmecky said.
Longtime Homewood resident Elaine Egdorf said she worried people would be discouraged from moving to the village if the redevelopment were allowed to proceed.
“It’s not going to be the town we love,” she said.
Resident Christine Reardon called the proposal a “shortsighted disaster of a plan” that offers “no benefits to our town … and a lot of downsides,”
Residents have said that, if not a golf course, other uses should be considered to keeping the property from being redeveloped for a logistics park.
A commercial real estate firm hired to evaluate potential uses and market the site has said there was no interest from possible retail, office or residential developers.
Before the sale last fall to Diversified, owners of the golf course had filed a lawsuit in July 2019 in Cook County Circuit Court to disconnect the property from Homewood, 116 acres of which are in Homewood and about 12 acres in Hazel Crest.
Homewood officials agreed to settle the lawsuit and committed to reviewing the redevelopment proposal.
Under the settlement agreement, Diversified would receive $1 million from Homewood only after the village rezones the golf course to allow the distribution development, establishes a tax increment financing district and finalizes a redevelopment agreement, according to Chris Cummings, Homewood’s village attorney.
The agreement sets a May 12 deadline for all of those to happen, Cummings said. Should that deadline not be met and the TIF not be established, Homewood would consent to the property being disconnected from the village. Diversified would not receive the $1 million but would be paid $250,000, Cumming said.
While the golf course is surrounded on three sides by neighboring Hazel Crest, elected officials there said recently they have no interest in welcoming the logistics park development to their community.
Three males were shot, one fatally, in an attack on at least two vehicles early Friday on Interstate 57 near the border between Calumet Park and Chicago’s Far South Side, State Police said.
The shooting happened on northbound I-57 near 119th Street about 12:45 a.m., Trooper Elizabeth Clausing said in an emailed statement.
After the shooting, the drivers of the two cars went to a nearby police station to report the attack and three males who were in the vehicles were taken to an area hospital for treatment, with one later dying from his injuries, according to state police. A female passenger in one of the vehicles was not injured, police said.
Northbound lanes of I-57 in the area of the shooting were shut down until about 6:15 a.m. as investigators checked the area, according to police.
The Cook County medical examiner’s office did not immediately release information on the person who died.
Police did not release information on the ages of those shot or any other details.
“The investigation is still in its infancy” and more information was expected to be released later, Clausing said.