Grundy Zoning Board of Appeals recommends rejection of garage on Brisbin Road north of I-80

The Grundy County Zoning Board of Appeals recommended that the Land Use Committee reject amending the zoning on a property north of Interstate 80 on Brisbin Road from agricultural to zoning.

This came after the board received concerns from county engineer Eric Gibson and the admission from Dan Duffy, Minooka village administrator, that the village wasn’t yet prepared to offer a positive recommendation.

Duffy said he would first like a pre-annexation agreement with the company, GSM Holdings.

The property already has two buildings on it and would access the roadway through Minooka Road, one of the points of contention during the meeting.

“No industrial uses are currently nearby,” said Alec Macdonald, the Grundy County development director. “Only access is via a posted portion of Minooka Road beginning at Brisbin Road toward the Minooka municipal boundary, which is not designated for increased truck traffic. With increased truck traffic and future industrial commercial uses, it will create roadway safety issues for the foreseeable future.”

Duffy said Minooka offered a pre-annexation agreement using a template and the village thought it was heading down that road. He said he can’t offer a letter of support, and he requests that a pre-annexation be reached before any rezoning is done.

“When we get that, there will be things like setbacks, easements, screening, basically all in line with municipal code,” Duffy said. “Two, when we get close to the property line, it would trigger an automatic annexation. Quite often, we see down Route 6, large industries that do not want to annex in to adhere to municipal requirements, which are sometimes stricter than county mainly because there’s no incentive.”

Heidi Miller, the Grundy County land use director, said GSM Holding entering a pre-annexation agreement would bring stabilization for the community.

Duffy said the last discussion he had with the attorneys is that they weren’t considering the pre-annexation agreement, but they would consider it for future expansion.

“My only concern is quite often, that’s not the case when they expand,” Duffy said. “When the time comes, our corporate limits are right next to an individual or even a business, there’s very little incentive for them.”

Amanda King, the attorney representing GSM Holding, said there is no intention to use Minooka Road heading east. Instead, the garage would instead use Brisbin and Cheryl roads.

Jason Wiesbrock, with SPACECO, a civil engineering and surveying firm, said work at the garage will be for semi trucks only, and the garage will be able to work on six trucks at a time. There are 180 vehicles in the fleet, and the semis travel coast to coast.

Ray Underhill, Aux Sable Township road commissioner, said he doesn’t have a problem with the project if the semis are kept to Brisbin Road, but he said truck drivers follow their GPS, and that’s his main concern.

“We’ve already had one incident where a truck came around that curve meeting a school bus,” Underhill said. “Fortunately, that shoulder has been pushed out enough where the school bus was able to get over far enough that we didn’t have a major problem.”

The board voted unanimously to recommend that the Land Use Committee reject the project.