Hinsdale made mistake in fighting Garfield
As the developer of The Garfield in downtown Hinsdale, we applaud residents for their candor in the recent villagewide survey. They have expressed strong support for the very elements embodied by The Garfield.
You may recall Anno Domini IV received approval to build The Garfield, a mixed-use development, only to have a newly constituted Village Board claim in the past year that it could "undo" the consent. The village's maneuverings have landed the issue in DuPage County Circuit Court, where we are confident that we will prevail and receive legal approval to construct the mixed-use building at Garfield and First.
The survey of about 2,100 residents shows that they overwhelmingly support a mixed-use project of a size we have proposed. More than three quarters of residents (77 percent) endorse a three-story building in the downtown area. So it makes you wonder why the village continues to oppose it. Is the Village Board's fight really on behalf of the entire community, or is it serving the personal interests of a select few?
The village president and trustees may not always like what they learn, but they do have a responsibility to faithfully and ethically represent their constituents. Residents are clamoring for The Garfield in other ways, too.
By the village's own admission (Question 2.07, page 12 of Phase II survey), "more than two-thirds of residents believe the village should do more to provide housing for older residents who want options to stay in Hinsdale…survey respondents suggested more should be added closer to downtown. A logical location for multiple-family housing is in downtown buffer areas."
Support for condominiums in the downtown ranged from 60 to 70 percent (Question 2.07, page 12). Also, of those who are planning to move within the next five to 10 years, nearly half (48 percent) said their plans included multi-unit housing. (Question 2.09, page 13)
Conveniently, the Village Board recently used other survey results to justify asking voters to approve a 1 percent sales fax increase. Residents say they want certain capital projects done, of course, so that's all the encouragement the board needed to continue down a path that only three other DuPage County communities have done — seeking the 1 percent surcharge.
We challenge officials to be consistent in their response to survey results. If they are honest, they will drop their expensive and legally dubious fight to halt The Garfield's inevitable development.
And Hinsdale will at the same time be that much closer to addressing not only the will of its citizenry, but also the spate of vacancies that has occurred downtown. By the way, do their projections for increased sales tax revenue assume a return to the vibrant occupancy rate that Hinsdale previously enjoyed?
It's by no means automatic that residents will approve the sales tax, anyway. In the survey, 45 percent said they gave it little or no support. And while the survey stated that the increase would be to fund capital improvements, Trustee Jean Follett understandably voted against going to voters with the request, expressing concern that there was not a clear plan for how the money would be used.
No matter how village officials portray the numbers, the tax-hike discussion is clearly an outgrowth of the village's general reserve fund plummeting below acceptable levels. And guess what? It is about $350,000 short of the mark, or roughly equal to the amount the village spent last year alone on litigation in The Garfield matter.
The village can dress it up all they want, but the bottom line remains that they have dug themselves into a hole and are now gearing up to ask residents to bail them out from their irresponsible actions.
This Garfield Litigation Tax request would never have been necessary had the village simply followed the law — and not the rumblings of a select few — and stood clear of The Garfield's proper development. While it's too late to reverse the damage already done, we welcome an end to this sorry chapter in the village's history.
Matt Baron
Spokesman, Anno Domini IV Partnership