Naperville officials have agreed it’s time to redefine the city’s eastern border to ensure control over what happens to the 80 acres of unincorporated land separating it from neighboring Lisle.
Over the next six months, Naperville planners will consider if it is viable to relinquish the land and shift the boundary line westward to coincide with Naper Boulevard.
The area affected includes about 80 acres bounded by Ogden Avenue on the north, Naper Boulevard on the west, the Burlington Northern Railroad on the south and the current boundary agreement line on the east.
The agreement expires in 2002, and city planners will take the opportunity to hash out specifics on density, land-use and other details not included in the previous document, said Bruce Trego, Naperville’s director of community development.
“Your traditional land-use boundary agreements 20 years ago simply said there was a line between the two towns and you stay on one side and we stay on the other,” Trego said.
The last boundary agreement with Lisle was made in 1982. Since then, such agreements between municipalities have become more detailed, documenting specific land uses that are acceptable to both sides.
“We want to sit down with their planning division to see if we can come up with a land-use plan that is compatible with the two communities,” Trego said.
In April, Lisle officials came before the City Council requesting that the boundary agreement be revised to accommodate a townhouse development proposed for the property south of Ogden Avenue and east of Radcliff Road in unincorporated DuPage County.
The current boundary divides the proposed 8-acre subdivision, the bulk of which sits in Naperville’s planning area. But the proposal from Viking Development calls for the entire site to be moved into Lisle so the townhouses can have access to nearby utilities in the village.
The request spurred Naperville planners to take a more comprehensive look at the entire planning area.
“We said, `Let’s not be driven by one developer’s request to have the whole thing changed for his benefit. Let’s have the whole 80 acres lined up so that we don’t have to deal with it all piecemeal,’ ” Trego said.
In a recent report to the City Council, Naperville staff members said it would be difficult to provide sewer and water service to areas east of Naper Boulevard if they were ever annexed to the city.
“They didn’t really think of the natural flow of the land 20 years ago that determines where sewers could best serve the property,” Trego said.
“Literally, you would have to put a lift station or two in certain locations and pump it uphill so it would flow,” he said. “It can be done, but at first glance the staff said we might want to look at this because it would be a heavy cost.”
But some council members have spoken out adamantly against the idea of releasing any land to the neighboring municipality.
“That is a very nice piece of property, and I don’t know any reason Naperville should give that up to Lisle,” said Councilman Richard Furstenau.
Also, the proposed 36-townhouse development would have a higher density than Naperville’s plan, which calls for mostly single-family residences.
“We don’t need any more traffic on Naper Boulevard. Let’s at least have control of it,” Councilman Doug Krause said.
But Trego said he expects council members’ feelings will dissipate somewhat as officials hash out the details and grow more comfortable with the controls each city would have in the arrangement.
“That is a very typical reaction when you get into boundary agreements because they always are seen as jurisdictional control issues,” Trego said.
“There are neighborhoods within Lisle and Naperville that will be affected with the land use in these 80 acres.”
