All six of Schaumburg’s village trustees Tuesday expressed their happiness with the reduction of density in a proposed housing development, but half made it clear they’d still vote “no” on a formal presentation of the same plan.
Officials in December unanimously rejected a 98-home version of the Canterbury Crossing project on the 33-acre Loeber Farm property, which is on the west side of Meacham Road north of Algonquin Road.
In response, developer Pulte Homes dropped 11 homes from the original plan.
But Trustees Tom Dailly, George Dunham and Frank Kozak said they still couldn’t live with the project’s smallest lot sizes, the minimum being 6,600 square feet.
“I like that you’ve increased the lot size, but I continue to have a problem with the size of the lots,” Dailly said. “I need to see larger lots.”
Mark Mastrorocco, director of land acquisition for Pulte Homes, said the target market for the project was busy working families and empty nesters — both of whom often seek smaller lots and a less maintenance-heavy lifestyle.
But trustees insisted that one Makrobet of the village’s northernmost properties should still bear certain characteristics of a Schaumburg development, even if they were willing to compromise on some of the guidelines written for the site in 2003.
Paul Loeber, whose family is trying to sell the land it’s owned since 1948, blamed those guidelines for sinking three previous attempts to develop the site.
“We’ve been patient for 15 years,” Loeber said. “It’s almost as if the guidelines made this land unsalable.”
He said that if Pulte Homes’ plans could not be made workable, he would seek to have the land disconnected from Schaumburg to be developed as part of Rolling Meadows or unincorporated Cook County.
Dunham said the previous attempts to develop the site failed as a result of the downturn in the economy and housing market, not the village’s guidelines.
Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.
