Latest / Kendall County News - Shaw Local / Yorkville District 115 shares more details on proposed new school building at 106-acre site
Transcript
- 0:05Speaker 1: Yorkville District one fifteen shares more details on proposed new
- 0:08school building at one hundred and six acre site. Written
- 0:13by Joey Weslow, this article is being read by an
- 0:18automated voice brought to you by Everlett. During a Yorkville
- 0:22City Council public hearing Tuesday for the annexation of land
- 0:26for a new school, some residents express concerns that encroaching
- 0:29on River Road would be a bridge too far. Yorkville
- 0:34School District one to fifteen officials laid out more details
- 0:36on its proposed plans to build a new school on
- 0:39the one hundred and six acre farmland property it purchased
- 0:42from the Conover family last summer for about two million dollars.
- 0:46The property is located about a quarter mile west of
- 0:49the current high school campus, north of River Road. The
- 0:53land is likely to be the site of a new
- 0:54middle school or an elementary school, both of which are
- 0:58included in the two hundred and seventy five mille million
- 1:00dollar plan outlined in the referendum to build new facilities
- 1:03to accommodate the community's booming population. Residents are voting on
- 1:07the referendum on the March seventeenth, ballot. There also is
- 1:11the possibility of the school district donating some of the
- 1:14land to the Bristol Kendall Fire Protection District for a
- 1:16new fire station. The public hearing during the January thirteenth
- 1:20City Council meeting was for the proposed annexation of the property.
- 1:24The school district has also requested the city rezone the
- 1:27property before it submits site plans following the referendum. During
- 1:31the Tuesday public hearing, residents were particularly concerned about the
- 1:34impact along River Road and the current houses there. River
- 1:39Road is already too dangerous with speeding and heavy traffic
- 1:42down its narrow corridor, residents said, and increased vehicles in
- 1:46the area will compound the issue. Residents who spoke at
- 1:51the hearing said they feared that River Road could be
- 1:53widened as part of the school building project. Speakers raised
- 1:57issues regarding where access points and roads will be located
- 2:00and where buildings will be placed. They also raise concerns
- 2:03about storm water accumulating near River Road if anything is
- 2:06built uphill from it. Heather Di Verdi School District one
- 2:10fifteen's executive director of Facility Operations said while the site
- 2:14plan will not be developed and submitted until after the
- 2:17referendum vote. She foresees minimum impact along River Road. We
- 2:22are not putting a road through from the north end
- 2:24to the south end, Deverti said during the hearing. The
- 2:26road that we will be putting though will be coming
- 2:28from US Route thirty four on Beecher Road, and we
- 2:30have no plans yet. We are waiting for the referendum
- 2:33and then our architects will be putting something together and
- 2:36then we'll be bringing it back to the city. Right now,
- 2:38in our application, we did put that we are not
- 2:40putting a road through to River Road. We'd be stopping
- 2:42it up where our school stops. Mayor John Purcell said
- 2:46there is already a traffic light on US Route thirty
- 2:49four that could help with the additional influx of vehicles.
- 2:53The school district is having meetings with the Rush Copley
- 2:55Healthcare Center, located just off Route thirty four and Beacher Road,
- 3:00using some of their land to get a second egress
- 3:02out off of the property. Deverti said if a fire
- 3:06station is also planned for the site, there are no
- 3:08details yet about how cars would get in or where
- 3:10the building would go. Alderman Daniel Transier encouraged the public
- 3:14to come back and participate with the next steps of
- 3:17the project. These steps are going to be public and
- 3:20everyone's going to have an opportunity to see how it's
- 3:22going to proceed, Transier said during the meeting. There is
- 3:26a public hearing for the proposed rezoning of the land
- 3:29during the city's Planning and Zoning Commission Wednesday night, January fourteenth.
- 3:33The school district is also looking to rezone a forty
- 3:36five acre property adjacent to the high school. The project
- 3:40will then come back before city Council on February tenth,
- 3:43before the city waits for the school district to submit
- 3:46the proposed plans following the referendum.