Annexation Agreement Dates Back To 1998

Issues about the property located at Route 22 and Quentin Road began to surface in the summer of 2010.

“We learned that the village of Hawthorn Woods planned to forcibly annex the Wooten property, which was on the Lake Zurich side of our intergovernmental boundary agreement, at a hearing on the night of July 1, 2010,” Mayor Suzanne Branding said.

The boundary agreement established properties on the west side of Quentin Road and north of Route 22 as Lake Zurich and the east side as Hawthorn Woods.

When the agreement was created in 1998, the properties were part of unincorporated Lake County, as they are today. Branding said she, Village Administrator Bob Vitas and Building and Zoning Director Dan Peterson brought the agreement to the attention of Hawthorn Woods the night of the July 1, 2010 meeting, but Hawthorn Woods went ahead and took steps to annex the properties despite Lake Zurich's warnings. 

“Hawthorn Woods received voluntary annexation petitions from several of the property owners in that area, and since they were in unincorporated Lake County, we moved to consider them,” Hawthorn Woods Mayor Joseph Mancino said.

“We were not aware of the agreement at that time; it predated myself and the board,” Hawthorn Woods CEO Pam Newton said. “When we received a copy of the agreement, what we found in reading it was that it was an archaic document.”

In the weeks after the hearing, Newton said the ordinance for annexation was repealed due to procedural errors in notifying property owners.
 
The property then reverted back to unincorporated Lake County by August 2010.

Court documents from July 2011 state that immediately after the July 1, 2010 meeting, Dennis Wooten testified that Vitas and a Lake Zurich village attorney prepared a voluntary annexation petition that was signed by Wooten and his mother, Charlene. The Wootens own at Route 22 and Quentin Road.

The petition stated that a 1993 boundary agreement between Lake Zurich and Kildeer, which had been holding up the sale and future development of the Wooten property, would be amended to allow commercial development by Oct. 1, 2010.

Kildeer is involved due to a 1993 agreement with Lake Zurich, stating the property south of Route 22 and east of Quentin Road is in the jurisdictional boundary of Kildeer. Although Kildeer does not have jurisdiction over the Wooten property, the agreement dictates the two villages would come to a consensus on any commercial developments because of their proximity to one another.

From that date leading up to June of this year, no movement was made to amend the agreement between Lake Zurich and Kildeer.

“The wait was between Lake Zurich and Kildeer as they were trying to work out their own intergovernmental agreement, so that property could become commercially developed,” said Lake Zurich Village Attorney Carlos Arevalo. “Part of the issue here is that there is no agreement yet; they can be difficult to reach.”

Newton said in addition to the 1998 agreement being antiquated, Lake Zurich breached the boundary agreement relating to sewer lines and zoning issues.

Arevalo said Lake Zurich does not believe it violated the agreement for installation of sewer lines. 

“The sewer line was constructed by North Barrington; we simply served as a delivery system to help North Barrington get to the Lake County system,” Arevalo said. “The line is owned and operated by North Barrington.”

Hawthorn Woods also believes that Lake Zurich did not properly zone land parcels that border its village, said Newton.

Arevalo conceded that Lake Zurich zoning was required to allow only parcels no less than 20,000 square feet, and some parcels are smaller than the agreement stipulates.

“We claim if it is a breach, it is a minor breach,” Arevalo said. “The court determined that due to the passing of time, the breaches were not material.”

Hawthorn Woods had argued that since Lake Zurich had “several and substantial” breaches to the boundary agreement, the agreement had been violated and was therefore not enforceable, said Arevalo.

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