Hart Project Halted As Court Rules Against Village Of Glenview

GLENVIEW, IL — Following a year of court defeats against the Village of Glenview and a private developer, a group of homeowners in Glenview can now boast a victory. An Illinois Appellate Court ruled last Thursday in favor of the group, and the building of a commercial development planned for the southwest corner of Willow and Pfingsten roads on the border of Glenview and Northbrook has come to a screeching halt.

Last September, the group, who own property adjacent to the site, filed the lawsuit against the Village and GW Properties to stop the project. Plans for the property, known at the Hart Estate, include a 63,000-square-foot retail development on an 8.5-acre parcel at 2660 Pfingsten Road. The project would include a 35,000-square-foot grocery store as its anchor tenant in one of four freestanding buildings on the northern 6.2 acres of the property, which is known as the Hart Estate after the family that has owned it for decades. The development will also contain restaurants, fitness and medical facilities, according to the plans.

In December 2019, the Village of Glenview won in court. Despite the setback, the homeowners opted to appeal the decision. In January, the Glenview Village Board voted unanimously for GW Properties to push forward with the project, and work began last month.

Subsequently, the developer oversaw the "erroneous removal of dozens of trees" at the site, according to court records. In the case of Sullivan v. Village of Glenview, the appellate court temporarily restrained any demolition, tree removal and construction at the Hart Property.

"The language in the Court’s order is positive for residents, because any municipality that stealthily passes an ordinance should not be permitted to walk over their residents' due process rights simply because a certain amount of time has passed," said lead attorney Brendan R. Appel, of North Shore Property Law.

A worker involved with the tree removal, who asked to remain anonymous, reached out to Patch and questioned the claims by North Shore Property Law and the neighbors that dozens of trees were knocked down.

"I can say with certainty that only two trees were removed that should not have been. Those trees were old and a hazard to the public at large, so we made the decision to remove them for safety reasons, document their removal and report the removal to the city," the worker said. "The developer readily agreed to pay additional bond amounts to account for those trees being removed. There were no other protected trees removed from the property illegally."

The original complaint alleged, in part according to North Shore Property Law, that a 1988 ordinance passed by the Village of Glenview illegally allowed the Hart Property to be rezoned from R-1 Residential District to a combination of B-1 General Business District and R-4 Residential District. Specifically, the complaint alleged that Ordinance 2856 was passed in violation of Illinois law because no notice of a public hearing was originally published in 1988. According to the homeowners' lawyers, this "meant that neighboring residents, and other interested parties, were not afforded due process before the rezoning ordinance was passed."

In 1988, the Hart family arranged for the plot to be annexed into Glenview, with the village board approving an ordinance allowing it to be zoned for commercial use in the future. The property is currently under contract to GW Properties for an undisclosed price. Its current estimated market value is $1.77 million, according to the Cook County assessor's office.

The case is expected to go back to court in near future.

Related:
Controversial Willow-Pfingsten Development Wins Village Approval
Controversial Glenview Development Wins Plan Commission Approval