'Something Not Right' With Hinsdale Project: Official

HINSDALE, IL – Hinsdale may decide against granting an occupancy permit for an office building project on Ogden Avenue, the village president said this week.

At Monday's Village Board meeting, resident Kelly Staver, who lives in the 100 block of Fuller Road, said her house is behind the renovation project at 110 E. Ogden Ave.

The village has approved a second-floor addition for the building. It is set to be the chiropractor's office for Dr. Cara VanWormer-Hartman.

Staver said she was not pleased when she found out that a second story was being planned a couple of years ago.

But she said she did not object or attend village hearings on the matter. She said that was because she believed the existing landscaping between the properties was enough to screen her house from the office building.

Since then, she said the owner has cut down the trees and planted no landscaping whatsoever.

"There is no landscaping buffer. There is no privacy," Staver said.

The owner, she said, has failed to meet the village's requirement for screening between residential and commercial properties.

In an interview Thursday, VanWormer-Hartman said the project started in August and then the weather turned cold in November. So there has been little chance to do the landscaping, she said.

"At this point, it's 40 degrees and there is frost," VanWormer-Hartman said. "The project isn't done. November to April isn't prime planting season. How can trees be planted? Nothing would survive at this point."

She said an arborist found poison ivy and poison oak and trees that are essentially weeds.

"Whether they provided shade or not, the trees were weeds," VanWormer-Hartman said.

She said the Village Board twice approved the project plans, including the landscaping. She said her firm is improving a property that has been abandoned for a decade.

"We're bringing a service to Hinsdale that's not like any other," VanWormer-Hartman said. "We're bringing a functional wellness center. It will serve the greater good."

At the meeting, Village President Tom Cauley said the village can withhold the occupancy permit if the property fails to meet codes.

He said he has gone by the project on Ogden Avenue and could see Staver's property from there, while he could not before.

"Something is not right, and we will fix it," Cauley said.