JACKSON TOWNSHIP – The portable sign along Noel Road reflects the bad aftertaste residents in the neighborhood have since Joliet approved a plan to build million-square-foot warehouses there.
“Joliet City Council Does Not Care About Us,” the sign reads.
They may add council members’ names to it in the future.
“It’s all 260 people who live out here who own the sign,” Dave Terdic said.
The 260 people are in the Noelwood Estates subdivision that is in unincorporated Jackson Township and will become neighbors to the warehouses if they are built. So will residents of Cedar Creek, a subdivision in the city limits of Joliet.
Terdic was among the many residents who filled council chambers last month and spoke against the plan at two City Council meetings, arguing that the plan brought warehouses too close to homes and would add truck congestion in an area where that’s already a problem.
The City Council voted, 5-3, on Dec. 19 to annex the 138.5 acres known as the Smith farm at Route 53 and Breen Road and give it industrial zoning. The plan for the site is to someday develop two million-square-foot warehouses.
“If we knew there would be warehouses, we would not have moved in here,” April West said. She and her husband, Michael, moved to the Cedar Creek subdivision in September.
Although the area of Joliet and unincorporated Jackson Township that runs south of Interstate 80 along Route 53 has become increasingly populated by warehouses and truck traffic, there still are places such as the Terdics’ house in Noelwood Estates and the Wests’ new home that retains a relatively rural flavor.
“We liked it. It was great,” Michael West said. “People were friendly. And in our backyard, we have this nice cornfield.”
That cornfield will be replaced by a warehouse if the plan for the Smith property proceeds as designed.
More and more of what farm fields are left could be replaced by warehouses, as the plans for industrial development seem to march on regardless of opposition from homeowners and even disagreement among public officials.
The people that filled the Joliet City Council chambers to object to the Smith farm annexation pale in comparison to the crowds that came out to oppose the NorthPoint plan for a 2,000-acre warehouse development farther south along Route 53.
In both cases, Jackson Township officials and state Rep. Larry Walsh Jr., D-Elwood, joined the residents in voicing opposition to the plans. But the Elwood Planning and Zoning Commission last week also gave its preliminary approval to the NorthPoint plan.
In Joliet, council members who voted for the Smith farm annexation said they agreed with the case being made that there was no future for residential development in the area.
“There are no houses being built down there,” council member Larry Hug said. “The choice was vacant or industrial.”
The city’s own Southside Comprehensive Plan, created when warehouses were first coming to that section of Joliet, called for the Smith farm property to eventually be developed into residential subdivisions.
Advocates for the Smith farm annexation said the plan was obsolete, having been created before the housing boom that was occurring in Joliet was halted in the recession and before the rapid development of warehousing on the south end of the city.
“Eleven years is pretty old,” council member John Gerl said of the plan. “Many, many things have changed since that plan was developed. ... The market is completely different.”
The plan was designed in part to avoid situations in which warehouses are built right next to residential subdivisions.
Gerl said that kind of development has occurred elsewhere in Joliet, pointing to warehouses along Houbolt Road that abut houses on the West Side.
“They’re co-existing,” he said.
Gerl said subdivisions on the south end of Joliet may have to become neighbors to warehouses. He said the city will work on development agreements when the warehouses are built to create buffers for the neighborhoods.
“That’s how they co-exist – make sure they’re good corporate neighbors,” Gerl said.
That approach, however, is what worries residents.
“If you allow one, how are you not going to allow the others?” said Nancy Steinberg, who is worried that the Joliet vote sets up the next farm field to be converted to warehouse development. “People out here are trying to raise families.”
Steinberg moved to Noelwood Estates in 2007. Many of her neighbors have been there since the 1970s.
Morgan Africa and her husband, Alex, moved to Noelwood Estates in 2014. They have two small children.
“I just figured we’d have more time,” said Morgan, who grew up in the area and wanted to start a family there. Even in 2014, the south end of Joliet was much different than it is now, she said.
“I wanted to raise my kids in the country and not a cement jungle,” she said. “I can only imagine more traffic. It’s already hazardous.”
Jerry Helis came in 1999 after driving by Noelwood Estates for years as part of a route he drove for UPS.
“I fell in love with the area,” Helis said.
Although the area has changed since 1999, Helis said he and other neighbors believed warehouses would be kept in CenterPoint Intermodal Center-Joliet, where there still is land to be developed. They also believed some separation would be maintained between warehouses and homes.
“This is where people live with families,” he said.
Helis said he’s not accepting a fate of ongoing warehouse construction. He planned to start meeting with county officials and others to see what residents can do to get some control over the future of their neighborhoods.
He bristled when told one council member used the phrase, “You can’t stop progress,” in reference to future warehouse development.
“One man’s progress is another man’s poison,” Helis said. “We’re tasting a lot of poison right now.”