This week, the Riding Club of Barrington Hills along with “equestrians and concerned members of the community” issued their opinion and recommendations on the present situation regarding horse boarding in Barrington Hills. An excerpt reads:
“We acknowledge and support the current position of the Village of Barrington Hills Board of Trustees that horse boarding is a permissible and legal activity in Barrington Hills; and that no other horse boarding facilities are at risk other than the one involved in the current legal dispute.”
This published statement comes on the heels of unfortunate widespread misinformation, presumably by a few within this group, via social media and petition language (see The unwelcome return of underhanded Village politics) and was posted on a non-club Facebook page on June 4th.
The Riding Club’s full opinion statement, including their assessment of our current codes and their recommendations, which was presumably already submitted to our Zoning Board of Appeals, can be downloaded here.
Our Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) is currently accepting written public input from residents on the matter of horse boarding and the current codes that address it. The ZBA posting to our Village website reads as follows:
“The Zoning Board of Appeals is soliciting input from residents with respect to the continued appropriateness and clarity of the village zoning code as it pertains to the boarding of horses. Please work with neighbors to prepare suggestions that reflect collective viewpoints, while reserving the ability of any resident to propose individual suggestions. Please submit any suggestions and supporting material to the village clerk at clerk@vbhil.gov on or before June 11, in order for those materials to be distributed to Board members in advance of the next regularly scheduled ZBA meeting on June 16, 2014.”
Unfortunately, this website posting fails to reflect the parameters placed upon comments from residents by the ZBA chair when she alone solicited this input without a vote of the Zoning Board last month.
According to the recordings from the May ZBA meeting, input should support, and be consistent with, the Village Comprehensive Plan (which can be downloaded here). Chairman Freeman also stated that comments and proposals submitted in prior go-arounds on this matter lacked real-life reasons or rationale for all parties involved for all ZBA members to understand before moving forward.
Village residents should consider these factors when taking time to craft any proposal to our Zoning Board, and please be sure to include your name and address.
As The Observer has mentioned before, the language for the text amendment likely has already been drafted with some special interests in mind, so this code text amendment process will probably only be a means to a predetermined end.
Nevertheless, we believe it is incumbent upon all residents to voice their opinions and proposals for horse boarding code amendments on or before June 11th to the Village Clerk at clerk@vbhil.gov to ensure this process has some validity and is documented.
– The Observer
