SUGAR GROVE – Officials with the village of Sugar Grove say they have been informed that Crown Community Development plans to de-annex from the village and submit plans to the village of Elburn.
Crown is the company behind the controversial mixed-use development that withdrew its proposed plan for Sugar Grove nearly a year ago.
Sugar Grove Trustee Ryan Walter said Crown claims they have five of six land owners willing to annex with Elburn to gain contiguity to Crown’s property.
“Elburn would be making a huge land grab to allow Crown to build their project virtually in Sugar Grove,” he wrote in an email. “If Elburn entertained Crown’s proposal, Elburn would literally be putting a development our residents did not want in our backyard. Sugar Grove and Elburn residents do life together. We are Kaneland. It would be very unfortunate for Kaneland as a whole if Elburn allowed such a project to happen in Sugar Grove’s backyard. It would, unfortunately, cause a lot of animosity between residents.”
Walter said the new developments are not surprising.
“It certainly pivots and changes the direction that Crown will be going,” he said.
To date, the village has not received a petition from Crown requesting de-annexation, officials said.
Village Administrator Brent Eichelberger has said the village hopes Crown doesn’t request de-annexation from Sugar Grove and submit a plan to Elburn.
Walter called into question Crown’s motives, saying it is unclear why they would send an email to village officials stating their plans as a heads-up.
“Sending the petition is heads-up enough,” he said.
Talks between officials with Sugar Grove and Elburn on a new boundary line agreement remain up in the air.
“To date, they’d told us no,” Walter said. “Based on their land use plan and current events, we think they would be interested in doing a boundary agreement.”
In a draft copy of Elburn’s land use plan, it states the village of Elburn does not seek to expand beyond its current planning jurisdiction and does not envision annexation to the newly improved Interstate 88/Route 47 intersection.
Elburn Village Administrator John Nevenhoven has said the village does not intend to let Crown use Elburn as leverage in negotiations.
A phone call to Nevenhoven was not immediately returned.
Phone calls to the consulting company handling communications for Crown were not returned.
Source: The Daily Chronicle
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