Title/Name/Summary
Land Development Code Amendment - Section 5-112
History
PROJECT:
Amendments to Section 5-112 of the Land Development Code
PETITIONER:
Village of Orland Park
Development Services Department
PURPOSE:
The amendments to Section 5-112 are intended to update the development and subdivision requirements of the Village of Orland Park.
ATTACHMENTS:
Exhibit C:
Proposed Section 5-112 Development and Subdivision Requirements
PLANNING OVERVIEW:
The purpose of the proposed amendments to Section 5-112 is to update the development and subdivision requirements of the Village of Orland Park. As in other sections that have had proposed amendments, such as 5-105, 5-108 and 5-109, Section 5-112 has had content regarding the decision making process and development review process moved from this Section to the proposed Section 5-101.
DISCUSSION:
Primary Amendments to Section 5-112 Development and Subdivision Requirements
Section 5-112 is amended in order to update its development and subdivision requirements. The single largest update in Section 5-112 is the removal of the General Procedures process from the section. The information was removed from 5-112 and moved to 5-101 in order to create a centrally organized and consolidated section of the Land Development Code that would concisely explain the organization of the development review process and the procedures involved.
Another primary change in Section 5-112 was to replace all relevant references to “subdivider” with the word “applicant” and all relevant applicable references to “subdivision” with the word “development” in order to make the entire section generally applicable to all development in the Village and not just the act of subdividing.
Proposed Subsection D of 5-112 describes the requirements and procedures for record plats of subdivision. This particular section is a hold-over from the existing 5-112. Various clarifications were made so that other plats (of vacation, dedication, easement, abrogation and consolidation) can follow the same procedural steps as plats of subdivision in terms of the development review process. In this subsection, 5-112 links back to the proposed 5-101 in order to clarify that plats are not approved with conditions. Conditions must first be met in order for a plat to be approved and passed by the Village Board. As stated in other staff reports, the reasoning for this is so that the Village is certain the plat will reflect the desired conditions prior to being recorded at the County level.
Subsection E of the proposed Section 5-112 describes the “Guarantees for Improvement Completion”. This is the part of Section 5-112 which establishes performance guarantees for developers and applicants in order to meet the Village’s standards for development. The important changes made in this subsection begin with not allowing final engineering, not approving/ issuing building permits to a petitioner and not allowing construction to begin until all the requirements of Section 5-112 are met. The existing Code differs in that it only states “no final subdivision plan” will be approved until the requirements are met, which may be understood as only applying to subdivision development/ Board approval.
By making this change the Village will codify current standard operational procedures and policies of development review that do not allow building permits to be issued or final engineering to commence a project until all commitments for the development, via the terms of letters of credit or other method of performance guarantee, are met. The change also makes Section 5-112 clearly applicable to all development that is reviewed by the Village’s Development Services Department.
In Subsection 5-112.E.3.a under “Security Methods” the deleted methods of Surety Bond, Cash Escrow or Cashier’s Check, and Letter of Commitment are eliminated. The subsection leaves letter of credit as the defined method of performance guarantee. The letter of credit is the preferred method utilized by the Village as a performance guarantee. The main change in the clarifications under letter of credit is an increase from 10% to 15% of the required minimum balance of the letter of credit. The letter of credit’s balance “shall at no time be less than 15% of the total estimated cost of the improvements yet to be accepted by the Village or property.” The increase represents a slightly more conservative disbursal of the letter of credit. The reason for this is that past experience has indicated that the 10% remaining balance of the letter of credit is often not enough in resources to complete outstanding work which had been left for the end of the project.
In this subsection the time limit of the letter of credit is expanded from 12 months to 24 months. Most projects with outstanding work have their letters of credit renewed every year. The 24 month time limit will alleviate the constant renewal of letters of credit accordingly, although it is understood by staff that some financial institutions do not offer 2 year letters of credit.
Because state law requires multiple means of performance guarantees/ security method, and because the Land Development Code removed other performance guarantees/ security methods in the past and placed special emphasis on letters of credit as the preferred performance guarantee/ security method, this subsection allows a general provision that states that “the Board of Trustees may, at its discretion, approve any other security method”.
Further down in the proposed Subsection 5-112.E.6.a and E.6.b, the Code is amended to, in E.6.a, clarify the disbursement of the letter of credit. In E.6.b, however, a new paragraph is added that generally explains that any other performance guarantee or security method that the Board may accept must be similarly disbursed as in the case of the letter of credit.
In the proposed Subsection 5-112.E.8.a.3.c the percentage is increased from 10% to 15% in order to reflect the increase made earlier in Subsection 5-112.E.3.a for letters of credit. In E.8.a.3.a; 3.b; and 3.d the language was clarified. No substantive changes were made.
In the proposed Subsection E.9.a the Code is amended to note the role of consulting firms or agencies which may carry out inspections and reviews for the Village. It also notes that compensation will be paid by the applicant to the Village for its efforts. This sets up the provisions in Subsection E.9.e regarding engineering review and inspections and landscape plan review and inspections. The proposed Code eliminates the existing engineering fee schedules. The elimination makes way for the Village Board to set a fee schedule via ordinance that will regulate the engineering and landscape review and inspection fees. It also states that compensation required by the consultant from the Village will be paid for by the applicant. The removal of the set engineering fees is mostly because the Land Development Code cannot set fees for consultants to charge. The fees are also removed in favor of the more dynamic method of setting fees by ordinance of the Board of Trustees. Fees by ordinance preserves the Village’s ability in the future to set and charge them should the need arise.
In the proposed Subsection F the letter of acceptance issued by the Public Works Department is clarified. Subsection 5-112.F.1.a outlines the necessary information that the Public Works Department needs prior to the issuance of the letter of acceptance of improvements.
In the proposed Subsection G, subtitles of the provisions in the subsection were corrected to fit the current format of the Code. There were no major changes.
PARK, SCHOOL, and TRANSPORTATION EXACTIONS
In the proposed Subsection H, exactions are clarified. Exaction fees were not updated from the currently established fees. All fees remain the same.
In the proposed subsection, park exactions are clarified to apply to all new residential developments of two or more units. The park land donation ratio is also increased from 7 acres per 1,000 people to 10 acres per 1,000 people. The increase in land donation is consistent with the requirements of the Comprehensive Plan to have 10 acres of park space/ open space for 1,000 residents in new developments (Chapter IV Land Use of the Comprehensive Plan). Similarly, cash donations equal to the capital improvement cost of park land for every 1,000 people is updated from 7 acres to 10 acres in the following provision. Consistency between the Land Development Code and the Comprehensive Plan is important to fulfilling the long-term goals and objectives of the Comprehensive Plan of the Village of Orland Park.
Projected Population in Table 5-112(H)(9)
Under the title “Projected Population” in the same Subsection H, the existing Table 5-112(K)(9) is referenced. The existing table has not been updated since 1998 and does not reflect the current condition of estimated people per type of dwelling unit. In 2005, the City of Naperville undertook a study to update this same table in their Municipal Code. The updated table from Naperville is imported into the Village of Orland Park’s Land Development Code as Table 5-112(H)(9) with these amendments, replacing the 1998 table. This table will assist in the projection of population in the Village’s development of residential subdivisions. Overall, the 2005 table generally depicts a more accurate picture of the existing population per type of dwelling.
Comparing the 2005 table to the 1998 table in terms of total people per unit, we see that in 2005 and the years following more people are living in smaller 2 and 3 bedroom-single family detached dwellings, while less people are living in 4 and 5 bedroom single family detached dwellings.
At the same time, the population shift is also evident in attached single family dwellings. The 2005 table has incomplete data for 1 bedroom single family attached homes. However, when compared to the 1998 table, the 2005 table does indicate an overall, yet slight, decrease in the number of people who live in 2, 3 and 4 bedroom single family attached dwellings. The 3 bedroom projection for the 2005 table indicates a slight decrease in projected population for this particular dwelling, although the difference between the 2005 projection and the 1998 projections appears minimal.
With regard to apartments, there is a slight decrease in the amount of people living in 1 bedroom apartments when comparing the 2005 table to the1998 table. There is an increase in the amount people living in 2 bedroom dwellings, which is slight. The greatest change occurs in 3 bedroom apartments, where in 1998 3 or more people were projected to live in 3 bedroom apartments but in 2005 only 2.47 people were projected to live in a 3 bedroom apartment.
The 2005 table, made and adopted by Naperville, provides important and updated information and is generally recognized as a representative data set of the overall living patterns of people living in the Chicago suburban municipalities. It will help determine the amount of park land needed, the amount of school exaction needed and other fees that will assist in the provision of significant services in the Village of Orland Park.
In the proposed Subsection 5-112.H.3.b the table present in the current Code was updated to reflect the 2005 data that Naperville had determined based on their projected population studies. Here, as in Table 5-112(H)(9) (formerly 5-112(K)(9)), the data in current use by the Land Development Code was extracted from the Naperville Municipal Code. Based on the 2005 findings, the data in this table under 5-112.H.3.b is updated to reflect projected school populations on the resources that will be required to sustain those populations. The greatest change in this table is the projected number of students in grades 6-8 and students in grades 9-12. Each group had an increase of 500 students over the 1998 data. For the Junior High students, 6 more acres of land was required to increase the minimum number of acres from 19.5 to 25 acres. For High School aged students, 14 more acres were needed over the 1998 estimates.
Transportation Exactions for Annexations
Another primary change in the Code is in the proposed Subsection 5-112.H.6, which deals with transportation exactions. The exaction fees remain unchanged; however, the Code is clarified to state that transportation exactions apply to annexations and the developments which may result from them.
Unchanged Library Exactions, Fair Market Value, and Density Formula
In the proposed Subsection 5-112.H.7 library fees are unchanged. Two subsections later, in H.9, the Fair Market Value formulations are not changed. The text of 5-112.H.10 (Density Formula) is also unchanged with the exception of the updated Table 5-112(H)(9).
This case will go before the Development Services/Planning Committee for review prior to being
sent to the Board of Trustees for final review/approval.
I move to accept as findings of fact of this Plan Commission the findings of fact set forth in this staff report dated April 22, 2008,
and
I move to recommend to the Village Board of Trustees approval of the proposed amendments to the Land Development Section 5-112, as written in the attached Exhibit “C” subject to the following instruction:
1. That in the final draft of the proposed amendments all text with strikethrough is eliminated from the text, all highlighted section reference tags are un-highlighted, and all red text is fully incorporated into the text of the Code as black text.
Recommended Action/Motion
AUBIN: Moved to accept as findings of fact of this Plan Commission, the findings of fact set forth in this Staff Report dated April 22, 2008 and moved to continue petition number 2008-0190, Section 5-112, Land Development Code Amendment, to the June 10, 2008 Plan Commission meeting.
THOMPSON: Second.