The Barrington Hills Park District will be hosting a special meeting tonight with the Cook County Forest Preserve District to discuss the Master Plan for the Horizon Farm property. The meeting begins at 7:00 PM at the Riding Center located at 361 Bateman Rd, and will also be available for participation via Webex remotely.
The meeting agenda for the Forest Preserve District portion of the discussion includes:
Open trails
Ongoing improvements
Then, the 2023 Horizon Farm master planning priorities follows including:
Track
Barn 11
Other amenities (parking lots, comfort stations, signage, etc.)
Maintenance of future Horizon trail system
Spring Creek trail system
Conspicuously absent from the agenda are topics such as hiking and walking, bicycling, cross-country skiing and birding.
After this portion of the meeting, Park District Commissioners will vote on the proposed (and clearly confidential), “Combined Budget & Appropriations Ordinance 2-08-2023-01.”
A copy of the agenda can be viewed here, and instructions for accessing the meeting remotely can be found here.
The Park District will host a meeting with the Cook County Forest Preserve District to discuss a Master Plan for the Horizon Farm property. The public is encouraged to attend in person or via Zoom (check back here for a link to the meeting.) Meeting Date: Feb. 8th, at 7:00 p.m. Meeting Location: 361 Bateman Rd. Barriington [sic] Hills, IL, at the Park District’s Riding Center Meeting Room.”
Public can enjoy miles of trails for walking, biking, equestrian use and more
The Forest Preserves of Cook County has fully opened Horizon Farm preserve in Barrington Hills for public use, including the introduction of several official trails available for pedestrian, biking and equestrian use. In 2023, the Forest Preserves will continue to gather input and present a long-term comprehensive plan for the nearly 400-acre site.
The northernmost section of Horizon Farm, approximately 40 percent of the property, has been open to visitors since November 2021. Since gaining full possession of Horizon Farm in 2019, the Forest Preserves has created new trails and addressed maintenance and safety issues for public use, including demolition of more than 20 buildings that were beyond their useful life—in some cases in deep disrepair.
“Every decade for more than 100 years, the Forest Preserves of Cook County has added to its holdings of public lands that are a home for native plants and wildlife and a resource for the people of Cook County. We are pleased to announce that now, the public can fully explore Horizon Farm. Our long-term plans for the site are still a work in progress, but now visitors can go further and do more,” said Arnold Randall, General Superintendent of the Forest Preserves of Cook County
A former equestrian estate, the Horizon Farm property is the largest purchase of land by the Forest Preserves since 1968. The site features meadows, wetlands and small streams, as well as open habitat for grassland birds. As of December 30, 2022, Horizon Farm is available sunrise to sunset for activities like hiking, birdwatching, photography, horseback riding and cross-country skiing.
In addition to opening the southern section of the property, the December 30 opening includes a new 1.2-mile loop trail and a spur connection to the Riding Club of Barrington Hills trail to the west. With the introduction of official Forest Preserves trails, equestrian use is now allowed in Horizon Farm. Some segments of the site will occasionally be closed for further trail improvements in 2023. The buildings that currently remain on the property include a garage for Forest Preserves maintenance needs, a barn at the main parking lot and a small corn crib that was once used as an office by a previous owner.
The Forest Preserves process to create a master plan for Horizon Farm will reconvene with key stakeholders in early 2023 with the goal of completing a draft for presentation to the public in the summer of 2023. The master plan will include plans for the remaining facilities on the site and a completed trail system, as well as strategies for investment in visitor amenities, promotion of ecological restoration efforts, and how to expand and deepen partnerships with local stakeholders.
The Barrington Hills Park District Advisory Committee meets this evening at 7PM. The primary topic of discussion is, “Explore possibility of a better time for Riding Club on weekends (as opposed to?).”
A copy of their agenda can be viewed here. Instructions for attending the meeting via Zoom can be found here.
The Equestrian Commission will hold a special meeting this evening at 6:30 PM to review. The sole topic on their agenda is, “Village Equestrian Trails.”
A copy of their agenda can be viewed and downloaded here. Recordings from the August 19th, 2021, meeting (the most recent recordings available) can be found here.
The Barrington Hills Park District Board will hold their regular monthly meeting this evening in person and via Zoom at 7:00 PM. Topics on their agenda include:
Cars travel east on Bolz Road near the Longmeadow Parkway’s new bridge that’s not done yet east of the Fox River. (Paul Valade | Staff Photographer)
Standing at the dead end of a private road just west of the new Longmeadow Parkway bridge over Route 31 is the convergence of all the love and hate for the decadeslong effort to create a new Fox River crossing in northern Kane County.
The private road ends with a panoramic view of some of the key improvements the 5.6-mile Longmeadow project brings. There will be less rush-hour traffic congestion, new business development, and access to the Cook, Kane and McHenry counties’ borders, all within minutes once construction ends.
But while overlooking that progress from the private road with a group of people wearing neon green Kane County Division of Transportation construction vests, there is the distinct feeling of being watched by some of the neighbors who long opposed the project.
“You have to kind of keep an eye out,” said county board member Drew Frasz. “Some of these people are not our biggest fans.”
That’s nothing new for Frasz. As chairman of the county board’s transportation committee, he’s spent the entire construction process defending the project and answering criticism, including from some of his fellow board members. To him, when the project is finished, it will be the culmination of the plans and desires of all the communities affected by it.
Driving the parkway, Frasz points to land set aside by community leaders in Algonquin and Carpentersville who envisioned a Longmeadow that fuels a new heyday for their communities.
In our last newsletter (December 2020), we described the additional analysis and evaluation required to select the preferred alternative due to the presence of federally listed threatened and endangered species: Hine’s Emerald Dragonfly and Rusty Patched Bumblebee. Over the last year, the project team has continued coordinating with agencies such as the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), the Forest Preserves of Cook County (FPDCC), the US Geological Survey (USGS), and the Illinois State Geological Survey (ISGS) to conduct the Biological Assessment (BA). The BA analyzes and determines the project’s effect on these species and/or their critical habitat, and documents the measures taken to avoid, minimize, and/or mitigate the impacts.
Two critical elements of the BA are the groundwater monitoring and analysis, which will be completed in early 2022, and the prescribed burn of the Spring Creek Forest Preserve, which was completed in 2021. You may have also noticed crews trudging through the marshy areas along IL 62 in the late fall as shown in Figure 2 (below). These crews are delineating wetlands within the Spring Creek Forest Preserve to help better identify potential habitat for the Hine’s Emerald Dragonfly within the study area. We anticipate the wetland delineation to be completed in the spring of 2022.
WHAT ARE THE NEXT STEPS?
Once the BA is complete, the project team can continue analyzing the impacts of the two remaining alternatives and select a preferred alternative. While the two remaining alternatives are both 4-lanes, one has shoulders, and one has curb and gutter. After the preferred alternative is selected, geometric and drainage improvements, and non-motorized accommodations will be refined and presented to stakeholders.”
A copy of the update can be viewed and downloaded here.
New traffic signals at the intersections of Longmeadow Parkway and Route 25 and Longmeadow Parkway and Bolz Road have been activated by the Kane County Division of Transportation.
Both sets of lights are part of the 5.6-mile Longmeadow Parkway, which begins at Huntley Road in Huntley, crosses through Algonquin, Carpentersville and Barrington Hills, and ends at Route 62.
Some of the parkway is now open to traffic, but the toll bridge over the Fox River to Route 31 and the section of road from Route 31 east over the river to Route 25 remain under construction.
In October, Division of Transportation officials said delays have occurrec because of steel and semiconductor shortages, price increases for materials, and the removal of lead-contaminated soil found east of the bridge site, where an outdoor shooting range once was located.
Construction on the $115 million project began in early 2016 and the entire corridor is now planned to be open sometime in early 2022, according to the county transportation division website, kdot.countyofkane.org.
With so many candidates running for various offices, we’d like to remind readers of the candidates The Barrington Hills Observer wholeheartedly endorses:
