An open-and-shut case: Open land needs better protection
In southwest suburban Homer Township, officials are planning to sell off land that voters had chosen to preserve. This sounds like a bad idea to us. The Legislature should revisit the open-space law to ensure more cases like this do not happen.
In this case, the Homer Township board wants to sell off two farms totaling 140 acres that have been set aside as open space via referendum.
That would allow the township to possibly raise money to build a barn-like community events center on a third farm, called the Trantina Farm, that also has been set aside as open space. New buildings presumably would go up eventually on the sold parcels, now home to the local Paul Farm and the Purdy Farm. As is common in zoning cases, the current agriculture zoning on the farms could be changed to allow building.
The sale of the land, now leased to farmers, could reportedly fetch about $4 million. The farms now are protected as part of an openspace district that was established in 1999.
Open-space districts, which complement land set aside for parks and forest preserves, allow townships to buy land outright, or perhaps just the development rights, which keeps the land in private hands but not available for building. Under the law, land set aside by open-space districts can be used to preserve natural habitat, historic sites, scenic landscape or open space such as farms.
Pioneered in Illinois by Libertyville Township in the 1980s, there are now several open-space districts in the state, including in suburban Campton and Dundee townships. Homer Township’s district has 240 acres of open space, which residents voted in 1999
to tax themselves to the tune of $8 million to buy. At the time, the expectation was that the open land would help preserve the lowdensity character of the township.
But now the township has scheduled open bids on selling the two farms on Oct. 17. Environmentally minded township residents say the township board has been secretively conducting its proceedings in ways that never made it clear that it intends to sell off open-space property.
“We think it is wrong that they are selling this land, and people here are very upset,” Gail Snyder, who helped pass the original referendum and who was secretary of the Homer Township Land Acquisition Committee for Open Space, told us. “Basically, the township is liquidating our open space program.”
If it sounds surprisingly easy to sell off protected land, that’s because some people think it is. It turns out the enabling state legislation that allowed for the creation of open-space districts might not have set up significant enough barriers to selling preserved land for development. In the minds of building-oriented people, land that is preserved at one time could be sold off at another with little chance of getting it back.
Some of those involved in setting up Homer Township’s open-space district say the law does not allow the sale of the land. The courts likely will settle the question of how strong the current protections are, but in the meantime, the Legislature should strengthen protections to eliminate any gray areas. The enabling law should include a provision that any process used to sell land allows the community to make an informed and widely accepted decision.
Selling off open land should not be as easy as selling, say, a truck the township no longer needs.
Whatever money Homer Township raises won’t make up for the sweat equity local residents built up over the years as stewards and volunteers nurturing the open space.
From time to time, officials and builders around the greater metropolis eye open space from forest preserves to parks as a way to create room for development. If they are allowed to do it indiscriminately, open space of all kinds might gradually disappear. Residents who want to escape the crush of urban congestion, even for an afternoon or weekend day, will be worse off.