Residents object, but Joliet zoning board OKs trucking plan

A group of East Side residents rose again last week in an attempt to block a plan for a trucking project close to houses.

The Joliet Zoning Board of Appeals on Thursday recommended approval for the truck parking and maintenance facility at 811 Rowell Ave. The City Council will have the final say and is expected to vote on the proposal on Oct. 18.

Some of the same people who spoke against the trucking project also objected to the Kingsmen Industrial Park to be built on a portion of the Joliet Job Corps property on Mills Road, which the council approved earlier this month.

“I’m just asking that you please consider the quality of life of the residents who live in this area,” Betsy Satcher, president of the East Side Neighborhood Council, said to the zoning board.

Satcher and others made similar arguments against the Kingsmen Industrial Park, saying residents in the area in the southeast section of Joliet need a grocery story and other commercial businesses to replace stores that have closed in past years. They are objecting to more industrial development.

Unlike the Kingsmen Industrial Park, the trucking operation planned by Pro Star Logistics would go on property already zoned for industrial use.

The site at at 811 Rowell Ave. was occupied by Joliet Disposal, which ran trucks for its trash hauling business out of the location until last year.

Zoning board members said the new plans for the site would create fewer problems than Joliet Disposal as well as other potential uses for the site.

The plan proposed by Pro Star Logistics needs a special use permit because of city ordinances that apply to truck maintenance facilities. Pro Star has told city officials that it expects no more than five trucks a day to come into the site.

“There’s probably not a less intrusive plan than what you people are suggesting,,” zoning board member Bob Nachtrieb said to Pro Star representatives at the meeting.

“It’s not going to get any better than this particular proposal,” Nachtrieb said to residents.

The site is on a 4.2-acre parcel that is among a number of industrial and business properties that line the west side of Rowell Avenue. Homes and two churches line the other side of the street.

“We don’t need a trucking operation in our neighborhood,” said Patsy Withers, who lives in the neighborhood on the other side of Rowell.

Nachtrieb and other zoning board members noted that Pro Star Logistics needed a special use permit because of city ordinances requiring the permit for a truck maintenance facility. Other industrial operations could move in without going to the city for approval because of the zoning on the property.

The vote was 5-1 with Colette Safford casing the only no vote.

Safford wanted the vote tabled until Pro Star representatives met with residents to discuss the plan. She, too, said less desirable operators could move onto the site.

“However, given the neighbors’ issues, I am going to vote no,” Safford said.