Residents aren’t happy with the Town and with the decision approving Zoning and a Preliminary Plat for Weldon Reserve. One council member said it’s wrong to frame this as a race thing.
Stan Nord said the old develop sold the remainder of the Wintergreen development about 40 acres…and it has got a long stretch adjacent to Beech Street. The town and the developer want the new Weldon residents to use Beech street as an access point for one entrance, although this long stretch could be used for two entrances, and the other entrance will be the existing Wintergreen II subdivision entrance to access Weldon Reserve.
“That’s what the residents are really concerned about,” said Nord, who doubles as Wintergreen I resident. “Basically Wintergreen II is going to become a thoroughfare.”
What was originally pitched to these homeowners was the extension of Wintergreen II.
“The issue is not the homes or size of homes being proposed in the new development. The issue is that Fairlawn Capital proposed the development as being homes for sale to the zoning board and then a few days later in a private meeting with residents disclosed the community will be all rental properties,” said Kyle McClintock, a resident. “Rents would range from $2,200 – $3,800 a month. When this was made public, the town council would not support the development and told them to rework their proposal. Barickman immediately went to press and began saying the houses would not all be rentals and be offered for sale or for rent. Still to this day, he will not say how many houses will be rentals or for sale and which leads residents to believe that they plan to rent all the homes. Fairlawn Capital’s whole business model is rental properties. That is where the residents have issues and are concerned about the impact on property values.”
Tiehack Development presented the image below to residents when they purchased lots and built homes in Wintergreen II of what the future expansion would be.
“The majority of homeowners were under the impression by the developer (Shirks) that the empty land as shown in the picture would be a continuation of Wintergreen II with homes following the same covenants and building standards,” said McClintock.
Stan Nord, a council member, said Fairlawn Capital is a business and you can’t put them on the hook to make a permanent decision on whether the homes will be rentals or not.
“At the end of the day they are building a nice subdivision [Weldon Reserve] but it is a different subdivision than Wintergreen II… the town is basically making the developer take advantage of the neighboring subdivision, [Wintergreen II]” said Nord.
Wintergreen II residents have some HOA criteria they have to follow…comparable to the idea that the Town of Normal has their resident follow temporary sign ordinances.
Criteria may include: three-car garages, a large amount of brick, etc.
“There’s all these different restrictions that they have and this is typical for subdivisions,” said Nord. “So the Wintergreen II residents asked, ‘hey are they going to have to follow the same restrictions?’ And when the answer was, ‘no, it’s going to be all different…’ That was when residents were like, ‘Hey this is a different subdivision? Why is your subdivision being accessed at the expense of ours?’ They have lots of kids that play out there in the subdivision…so I can understand where they are coming from.”
According to Child Crime Prevention & Safety Center, every 40 seconds, a child goes missing or is abducted in the United States. Approximately 840,000 children are reported missing each year.
“The thing that gets me is WGLT, a horrible station, put out this article and they put out that Wintergreen II residents were concerned if this neighborhood was going to follow all the covenants they have to follow,” said Nord. “And WGLT said, ‘Well one of those covenants is that you can’t have basketball courts. WGLT framed this as being a race issue.”
Nord said that WGLT is framing stuff because they are the town’s PR arm.
“Now they have called all these neighbors racist,” said Nord. “The neighbors had no choice in that. This is what the developer chose. In Wintergreen I, we have tried to change that rule: You can’t have basketball hoops. I think it’s horrible you can’t but it is hard to change that.”
