What’s at stake this evening

Tonight our Village Board is scheduled to discuss, and perhaps approve, a commercial horse boarding amendment to our Village code that a large and growing number of residents oppose.   The swift and wavering path leading to this vote has been strewn with disregard for procedure, for the opinions of many residents, and some would argue for the law.

For example, the last ZBA proposed horse boarding amendment took over a year to deliberate and draft culminating in a July 2011 letter from then and current ZBA chair Judith Freeman to the Village Board clearly stating that the best way to address commercial-scale horse boarding was through special use permits.

A copy of the ZBA opinion letter submitted by Ms. Freeman in 2011 can be viewed here.

Incredibly, while Ms. Freeman and the ZBA in 2011 were adamant that the best solution to commercial horse boarding was to regulate it through a special use permit process, today Ms. Freeman (and a marginal majority of the ZBA) have rejected a special use process.  Even more inexplicable is Ms. Freeman and the ZBA have offered no explanation for this dramatic change in their position.

On the other hand, the LeCompte proposal for agricultural designation of any scale of horse boarding was submitted just three months before a vote by the ZBA on September 11.  But that proposal, and three other proposals presented to the ZBA, were never reviewed during that meeting.

Instead, despite the lack of notice or resident scrutiny, a new proposal from ZBA member Kurt Anderson was submitted at the meeting, and it took less than three hours from introduction to a divided 4-3 vote approving this new amendment by the ZBA.

If approved tonight, the Anderson amendment will allow for:

• No special use permit required to start a boarding business
• Up to three horses per acre allowed on five acres or more
• Extended business hours beginning at 6:00 AM
• Unlimited customers and employees
• Diminished privacy rights of adjacent homeowners, subject only to “nuisance” law provisions, and
• Weakened property values and potential property tax shifts favoring boarding properties

This amendment favors a relatively small number of property owners and will be detrimental to a large number of other Barrington Hills residents, including those desperately trying to sell their homes in the poorest local real estate market witnessed in decades.

There are over one hundred-twenty R-1 zoned properties on the market in Barrington Hills today.  The total acreage of these properties is roughly 1,000 acres, or the equivalent of the Duda and Horizon acreage combined.  As one reader put it, why would anyone gamble on buying a home in the Village only to have a commercial business spring up next door if this amendment passes?

We encourage residents to attend tonight’s board meeting and speak up.  Ask why our Village officials are even considering such an amendment crafted solely for a small special interest group in our Village?

Also ask why public opinion has been ignored on such an important matter?  And why did Judith Freeman unilaterally cancel the September 15 ZBA meeting without a vote to consider the other amendments before the board?

The Village Board meeting begins at 6:30 PM at Countryside Elementary School. A copy of the agenda can be viewed here.

–     The Observer