Proposed Woodstock soccer training facility faces opposition

A soccer training facility proposed for outside Woodstock received overwhelming backlash from nearby residents at a community meeting Wednesday evening.

The facility is proposed by Soccer Xplorer, a sports management company that provides soccer training to kids ages 5 to 18. The project would see outdoor soccer fields along with an inflatable dome in which training could be provided year-round.

The facility would be located in unincorporated Woodstock between Country Club and Cherry Valley roads south of Castleberry Drive. The facility would directly neighbor the backyards of homes on Castleberry Drive.

Currently, the land is zoned for agricultural use.

The company would need approvals from the McHenry County Board in order to move forward with the project.

A request has not yet been submitted to the board. The Soccer Xplorer team will take in feedback from Wednesday’s meeting and make adjustments first, board President Ewerton Andrade said.

About 40 people attended the meeting, which was held at Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Cary. Multiple residents asked why Soccer Xplorer is looking to build the facility at that particular location since it is surrounded by residential areas.

“We appreciate what you are doing for the children,” one resident said at the meeting. “But not in our backyard.”

The county had a long-term plan for the agriculturally zoned area to build more residential homes in the future, resident Janice Jellicoe said. The area is highlighted as “residential” for future land use in McHenry County’s 2030 and Beyond Plan.

“This is a commercial operation, and it is not zoned commercial,” Jellicoe said. “You could have gone and looked for a commercially zoned acreage and had no problems with this.”

The plan would be able to keep the land zoned for agriculture and request approval for a conditional use from the county, said attorney Mark Saladin, who was at the meeting representing Soccer Xplorer.

Soccer Xplorer is affiliated with Chicago Inferno, a competitive soccer program based in Crystal Lake. The organization has members all across McHenry County and as far as Rockford and Elgin, Andrade said.

“They travel to us because they believe we have something special to offer,” Andrade said. “And I think they deserve a home.”

Currently, Soccer Xplorer rents out fields from the MAC Athletic Complex in Crystal Lake, which is about a mile away from the proposed site. Andrade said the organization has experienced “tremendous setbacks” trying to find fields to use since efforts to work with park districts have been unsuccessful.

Alcohol and tournaments are not planned at the site, Andrade said, but residents were wary of what could happen in the future.

Other residents’ concerns included the effect on home values, flooding, traffic, and the environment and wildlife.

The plan proposes three detention ponds to collect rainwater. About 35% to 45% of the land would have asphalt and turf, engineer Josh Terpstra said. Multiple residents raised concerns about flooding since many said their backyards frequently flood already.

This is a preliminary proposal, Terpstra said. The team will work with the county and conduct full studies to ensure the watershed would not be affected.

“If it is not up to code, they will not approve it,” Terpstra said. “I would not put forth a design that I thought was going to flood somebody.”

Saladin said the site could immediately be used as an agricultural produce-processing plant, agritourism, a commercial grain elevator or a school without any permission needed by the County Board.

As for next steps, Andrade said his team is going to take time to create a new plan after the feedback received from Wednesday’s meeting. There are no immediate plans to propose the project to the County Board.

“There’s a tremendous amount of work being done offstage,” Andrade said. “We would like for the neighborhood and surrounding towns to favor this, so we want to be mindful of how we interact with the new proposal.”