The vacant site at 1821 Gardner Rd. in Broadview, which sits across the street from a block of Westchester homes. A developer wants to build a warehouse and trucking facility on the site, but some residents are concerned about quality of life problems, such as truck traffic and pollution. | File
Sunday, October 8, 2023 || By Michael Romain || [email protected]
A developer’s proposal to build a warehouse and trucking facility on roughly eight acres of land at 1821 Gardner Rd. in Broadview is back after stalling for over a year. The proposal has prompted some people who live across the street from the site or own property nearby to express concerns about how the project might affect their quality of life.
Phil Fornaro, an attorney representing the developer, Rainy Investments (operating as Rainy Broadview LLC), requested a special zoning use for the project at a Broadview Zoning Board of Appeals meeting on Oct. 4.
The Zoning and Broadview village boards approved Rainy Investment’s special use request in 2022. Broadview Building Commissioner David Upshaw said the special use permit is good for 18 months before the developer has to start the process again.
“Unfortunately, the market got a little soft in the trucking industry, so it slowed the process,” Fornaro said. “Construction costs elevated significantly last year, which [affected] the viability of [the project].”
Fornaro said the project has stayed the same since he presented plans to the Zoning and village boards in 2022. At the time, Fornaro told village board members that the only access to Gardner Road would be for emergency vehicles. Non-emergency vehicles would access the property from I-290 through Indian Joe Drive. Fornaro said the Zoning Board recommended only right turns out of the property.
“It will be highly secure, with fencing, walls, cameras and lighting,” Fornaro told the village board last year. “Traffic will be predictable.”
Upshaw and some members of the Zoning Board said on Oct. 4 that they pressed for those features last year due to their concerns about the homeowners living across the street from the site. Gardner Road is the dividing line between Broadview and Westchester. The industrial district east of the street is Broadview, while the residential area west of the street is Westchester.
“The beauty of this project is that it does not have to burden Gardner Road at all,” Fornaro said last year.
Other features would include significant security technology, such as 24/7 cameras, landscaping features, such as a 14-foot sound wall designed to absorb the sound of traffic, and discreet lighting designed to shine down onto the truck terminal rather than out toward the homes across the street.
Fornaro said that since the development is in a flood zone, developers will build a detention pond to prevent stormwater on the property from spilling onto neighboring properties.
Despite those changes, some Westchester residents still voiced their concerns about how the trucking terminal might affect their quality of life.
David Byer, who lives across the street from the site, said at the Zoning hearing on Oct. 4 that he appreciated those changes but still had concerns about light, noise and diesel pollution, and potential truck traffic.
The view of 1821 Gardner Rd. in Broadview from Kitchener Street in Westchester. | File
“You guys are putting more and more truck traffic through that residential area,” Byer said. “That street is deteriorating. Number two, it’s very narrow.”
Byer and David Donahue, who owns property near the proposed trucking terminal, said they didn’t receive certified mailers notifying them of the Oct. 4 hearing. Fornaro disputed that claim.
“We followed all the requirements, sent all the notices out [and] prepared an affidavit consistent with what we presented to the board,” Fornaro said on Oct. 4, adding that he sent notices to Byer’s home and both properties that Donahue owns in the area.
Donahue and a team of deep-pocketed and obscure developers pitched a nasty legal battle with Broadview in 2007 after the Zoning and village boards refused to grant a liquor license for a proposed strip club they wanted to build at Donahue’s 2850 Indian Joe Drive property. That battle ended in 2018 when a federal judge dismissed the developers’ request for damages.
Upshaw and Zoning Board member Mathis Stegall argued that developing the site would be better than allowing it to sit empty. Rainy Investments purchased a 185,000-square-foot building on the property during an auction in 2018. The building, once home to a medical supplies company, had been abandoned for four years when it was purchased. The developer demolished the abandoned building last year. The vacant site now holds what appears to be several pyramid-like mounds of dirt.
The Zoning Board approved Fornaro’s second request for a special use permit 3-1, with one commissioner abstaining. The proposal now has to be voted on by the Broadview village board. The developers also have to present plans before the village’s safety commission.
Upshaw said on Oct. 4 that residents and property owners will have an opportunity to voice their concerns throughout the process, which could prompt the developer to make more changes to ensure that the developer minimizes the harm to Westchester homeowners.
“This is not the approval to build anything,” Upshaw said. “All of your concerns are going to be addressed because they are concerns from our neighbors across the street.”
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