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News About Our Township
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Information you should know about!
Annexation has its gray area
September 15, 2008
By Susan DeMar Lafferty SUN-TIMES NEWS GROUP
FRANKFORT -- Harlem Avenue, as we know it in Tinley Park, is a hustle-bustle highway, filled with traffic and stores. But head south -- way south -- past Steger Road into Green Garden Township, and it's a bucolic setting, where corn and soybeans grow. Much of the land has been annexed into Frankfort, which is trying to protect its borders in light of a future Interstate 57 interchange, third airport and development pressures from towns to the east.
Darrell McFarland held out when his neighbors annexed five years ago. It was easy to find his house when I visited recently, I just followed the Ruane Construction trucks, which share a driveway entrance with McFarland off Harlem Avenue.
The trucks come and go all day long, he said. The business is owned by Mark Ruane, who bought the land about 10 years ago, neighbors said.
"Trucks wake us up at 5:30 a.m. There's noise, the smell of diesel and dust from the gravel driveway. He lands a helicopter 50 or 60 feet from my home. Floodlights shine in my daughter's bedroom. And he's built a motocross track in the back for ATVs. He's allowed to do whatever he wants," said McFarland.
But what riles him more than anything is knowing that Frankfort would never allow this under normal circumstances.
"This is very unFrankfortlike. It's definitely not 1890s charm. They sold out my way of life because they wanted his property," he said.
He's been fighting for a solution for years. Will County can't do anything because even though McFarland is within its jurisdiction, Ruane is not. Frankfort officials claim the annexation agreement allows Ruane to do all this.
Vito Caprio, who owns land at Stuenkel Road and Harlem Avenue, said he assisted the village with the annexation by convincing enough neighbors to annex. Why? "Because they gave me a good deal. The area is beautiful and we want to keep it that way," Caprio said. Supposedly the same "deal" was cut with three others, including Ruane. This includes continuation of existing uses and no village property taxes during the 20 years of the agreement.
(As an aside, Ruane's land in Green Garden Township is not being taxed as a business. According to Rhonda Novak, Will County's supervisor of assessments, assessments are not based on zoning, but on the use of the land. Ruane's 28 acres are divided into four parcels -- 9.7 acres are assessed as residential with a %24672,000 house, 13.5 acres are assessed as a farm, and two 2.29 pieces are assessed as residential. If it was being assessed for business use, taxes would be higher, Novak said.)
"Taxpayers got hosed," said Walter Wieczorek, who lives south of McFarland. "He cut a sweetheart deal to the nth degree." And, now, Caprio claimed, Ruane is "abusing the land. He's getting away with murder and making everyone unhappy."
Several neighbors stated that since Ruane annexed into Frankfort he considerably expanded his concrete construction and excavation business. Initially, it was a few trucks. Today, they estimated he operates 30 trucks, cranes and bobcats seven days a week, beginning at 5:30 a.m. and running until 11 p.m.
Jerry Warning, Ruane's neighbor to the north, annexed with the group, but now regrets it. "With these terms and conditions, it's not fair to other people," he said. He is upset that Ruane dumped truckloads of clay and construction debris into a "wetland area" to create the ATV track in the past year. Before Ruane bought the land it was a farm and a track for horses. Now, Warning said, "it's ridiculous. Something is really wrong here. I feel sorry for Darrell. Everyone is blowing him off."
I tried several times to reach Mark Ruane, to get his side of the story. He never returned any calls but his brother Tom did. He said everything they are doing is permitted.
"I'm not filling in a wetland. That is a big no-no. We have secured every permit necessary," he said. "It used to be a racetrack for horses. A track is a track." He also said they plan to build a new facility on Laraway Road, to store construction equipment, but have not received a building permit yet.
Ruane's annexation agreement allows him to continue 11 "existing uses," including outdoor storage of commercial vehicles, use of property as a helioport, use of ATV or dirt bikes, his single family home, windmill, above ground fuel tanks, hunting, brush fires, boarding of horses, agricultural uses and a pole barn. The deal also states that "any expansion of these uses," construction or reconstruction of existing buildings or redevelopment of the territory shall be subject to village code.
And, therein lies the rub.
"He grew this business 100 times. You can't say it's the same operation," Wieczorek said. "I have a novel's worth of concerns. If you sat here during the day for a period of time, you would just shake your head. It's nonstop truck traffic. Constant noise. No privacy. It's unbelievable. He's above the law. What do you do if a government agency will not back you up?" he asked.
So I asked local government officials. "I don't know what the property was like when it was annexed," said village administrator Jerry Ducay. "To put that language in the annexation agreement means it was already ongoing."
Ruane's property has value to the village, he said, because they are counting on Harlem Avenue and Steger Road being a valuable corner some day and they want to be ahead of the curve. They want that land to be in Frankfort. He acknowledged the complaints of neighbors. "We may sympathize with them, but there is nothing we can do about it."
Mayor Jim Holland admitted that this business does not meet village codes, which is why Ruane was clever enough to spell it out in the agreement. "If the use changes, all deals are off," he said. "Is the trucking business larger? That is a legal question."
Holland also admitted that it is a "difficult situation" for the immediate neighbors, and he said he would review the situation in light of recent complaints. "My job is to find an answer. The people deserve a better answer. Finding one that is fair to all parties -- that is the trick. I would really hope the neighbors could work together."
And, I think, the neighbors do, too. "We don't want to give the guy trouble," said Caprio. "We want him to use common sense."
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