Village board approves economic incentive

The Lombard Village Board of Trustees on Thursday, Sept. 17, voted, on second reading, to approve an economic incentive agreement with D.R. Horton for its Lakepointe Townhomes project.

The proposed project is slated to be developed at the site of the former Northern Baptist Theological Seminary property, 600-670 Butterfield Road. Village staff had requested board approval for the use of Tax Increment Financing (TIF) funds for 157 townhomes and around 12 acres of open space, according to Trevor Dick, director of Economic Development and Planning.

The property was owned by the seminary from the 1960s until 2017, and was sold in 2020 to Hoffman 600 LLC Lombard (Hoffman). It was slated for development as a Golf Social driving range, a restaurant, a gas station with a convenience store and a 400-unit multifamily building. Instead, Hoffman put the property up for sale, and according to Dick, it sat vacant for roughly10 years.

The petitioner is asking for $4.5 million in TIF incentives, according to Dick, which he said is just under 6 percent of the project cost of nearly $75 million and way less than the nearly $28 million the Hoffman project was requesting.

The village board postponed any votes at the Aug. 20 meeting, and passed the incentive agreement on first reading on Sept. 3.

The board also voted on second reading to approve a comprehensive plan amendment, a map amendment, a planned development with conditional use, and deviations and variations, as well as a final plat of subdivision, for the Lakepointe Townhomes development, which was recommended for approval by the Lombard Plan Commission at its July 20 meeting.

The matter was also postponed on Aug. 20 and passed on first reading on Sept. 3.

In other business

• The board approved a resolution to renew a contract with Urban SDK to provide traffic analytics services.

The village contracted with Urban SDK last year, and Police Chief Joe Grage, in a memo, said of the company’s software that “It has been used by both the police department as well as public works on a number of occasions to answer questions related to traffic volume and speeding issues.

“Use of the software has reduced what would normally take two to three weeks down to mere minutes in order to complete a traffic study.”

The Jacksonville, Fla.-based company says it can aid in traffic enforcement, school zone safety, work zone monitoring, traffic safety analysis and event impact monitoring, among other situations.

The five-year contract will cost $133,976, with annual cost adjustments, according to village figures.

• After a public hearing on Sept. 3, the village board passed, on a waiver of first requested, a petition by property owner Armando Bustos, at 19W040 22^nd Street requesting annexation into the village in order to connect to the village-owned water main at 22^nd Street. He submitted a petition for the amendment, according to the village, also to rezone the property to the R1 Single Family Residence District, for which a first public hearing was held by the Lombard Plan Commission on Aug. 17.

“No redevelopment to the property is proposed,” Dick had previously informed the board, saying Bustos wanted to be annexed in order to acquire Village of Lombard water services.

• After a Sept. 3 public hearing, the board also approved, on first reading, amendments to zoning and annexation requests by Robert Mueller to reduce the number of single-family residences in the Norbury Crossings development at Norbury Avenue and 20^th Street from 19 to 17, for buyers who might want a larger home.

The zoning request was recommended for approval by the Lombard Plan Commission at its Aug. 17 meeting.