Prime example of NIMBY activism
Calumet Country Club property rezoning stirs Homewood controversy
As journalists, we’re not supposed to take sides on issues the newspaper may cover.
It’s a standard that makes sense: Taking a public stance on an issue could be viewed as bias from the entire organization as what one journalist does often reflects on the entire organization. You won’t find signs touting candidates in our yards or political bumper stickers on our cars.
I was put to that test early in my career, when as a young reporter in the 1990s I covered an expansion effort by a hospital in the western suburbs that area environmentalists said would negatively affect an adjacent forest preserve. One advocate took me on a tour of the preserve, which featured a pristine oak savanna that was unlike any woods I’d seen before. Rather than choked with underbrush, it was an open and inviting landscape roofed by centuries-old oaks.
I thought it was a marvelous place, but when I covered the municipal meetings as the hospital sought approval for its parking garage while scores of residents spoke up in opposition, I remained as neutral as I could to the disappointment of both sides, but especially the nature advocates. The expansion was eventually approved, and I moved away not too long after that and never returned to see if the fears of the preserve’s degradation came to pass.
It wasn’t a new concept then, and it’s not now. A proposed metal shredding and recycling operation on Chicago’s Southeast Side has generated lots of opposition, including a hunger strike by protesters, and a giant trucking and warehousing development in Elwood has had entire Will
County communities standing up in opposition for years.
I haven’t personally covered either of those more recent issues, but if I had to, I know I would try my best to be fair and stick only to facts, no matter how I personally felt.
Judging from the reactions from readers, I know fights against such developments are often dismissed as NIMBY activism. That stands for “not in my backyard,” and it probably dates back to the early days when humans first developed the concept of backyards.
But now it’s happening in my yard, or less than 750 feet away from my yard, according to a letter from the village of Homewood. Officials here are considering the rezoning of the Calumet Country Club property from an open space/recreational classification to industrial use.
The owners of the club, a group of prominent area businesspeople associated with companies including Mi-Jack in Hazel Crest, Homewood Disposal in Homewood and Ozinga Concrete in Chicago Heights, sold the property to Arizonabased Diversified Partners, which has proposed such uses as a rock crusher for disposing construction waste and currently, a trucking and warehousing operation that would pave over the majority of the property and add hundreds of big rig trucks to 175th Street, which is lined with residential homes.
I moved to my neighborhood a few years ago because it is pleasant, affordable and diverse.
Most of our homes are small and close together, and they’re filled with people who are very different from each other. Every day without fail, we see our neighbors out walking dogs and waving to each other and stopping to chat.
We’re separated from the bulk of Homewood by the Canadian National Railroad tracks and yard on the east and by Ravisloe Country Club on the south, but It’s a nice place to live, and from what I can tell, the bulk of us like it here in Governors Park.
As this news happens to my neighbors, my family and me, I’m staying away from my publication’s coverage of it. I cannot be impartial, though I have been paying close attention and gathering the facts.
At recent hearings, the developer’s consultants have said the rezoning would not cause harm to my neighbors and my family. They’ve done no studies on comparable properties of the potential for air, noise and light pollution caused by the addition of hundreds of semi trucks and a proposed refrigerated warehousing facility to former green space, but assert a small hill will protect residents living just feet away. They said an increase in nearby warehouse jobs would mitigate any negative effects on the health and well-being of my family and neighbors.
A group of those neighbors as well as allies from other parts of town and the region have gotten together to oppose this development. On a social media page devoted to defeating this proposed development, I see neighbors from all points on the political spectrum. People who toss around the term “plandemic” are uniting with unabashed treehuggers for a common cause, which is something I haven’t seen in a while. It’s encouraging.
Growing up in a different section of Homewood, I spent one miserable summer in the early 1980s as a caddie at a different Homewood country club. I was terrible at it, and eventually realized I was much better off cooking pizzas at Aurelio’s. I never developed any taste for golf, though I realize Calumet, established in 1901 with a course designed by Donald Ross, who also designed famous golf courses elsewhere, has importance in those circles. Its local significance is evident in that the Illinois Central Railroad created a passenger stop for it that’s still named Calumet along the Metra Electric District.
I also realize it was losing money, and the general prospects of country clubs may be akin to that of newspapers. But as a non-impartial observer, an effort by an out-of-state developer to maximize profitability of that land at the expense of the health, safety and well-being of my wife, son and neighbors, an entire neighborhood of people, represents more than just a conflict of interest for me.
It’s a travesty.
As Homewood officials mull whether to allow this development to proceed, there won’t be a sign in my yard opposing it. There shouldn’t need to be.
But as long as the forces of greed square off against those who want their homes to be pleasant and healthy places to live, there will always be NIMBY activism, and for that I can’t be more grateful.