Winnetka approves building expansion for real estate company

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Updated: February 20, 2012 9:01AM

By a 5-1 vote, the Winnetka Village Council last week approved a request by @ Properties to expand its office building, at 30 Green Bay Road.

Businesses thriving enough to want to expand are generally a good thing, and, since the recession, too rare an occurrence. But this plan generated some controversy due to parking problems in the Indian Hill business district where the real estate office is located.

Company officials explained the addition will provide room for 12 more desks, in addition to the 39 already there for use by the firm’s real estate agents. Currently, 114 agents have their licenses out of the Winnetka office, @ Properties owner Michael Golden said, correcting a lower number he told the Village Council last month. Agents spend the majority of their time outside the office, either meeting with clients or working remotely, Golden said.

The company also is opening a new office in Highland Park in about two months.

“There will be 75 licenses (out of the Winnetka office), after we open Highland Park,” Golden said. But he would not commit to a limit on the number of agents assigned to the office on Green Bay Road, when Trustee Arthur Braun asked for such a promise.

A petition with the names of nine business owners on the west side of Green Bay Road had been presented in opposition to the expansion. The businesses predicted more agents working out of the office would increase the demand for parking along the west side of Green Bay Road between Brier Street and Roger Avenue and for permit parking in the village parking lot on the east side of Green Bay.

To address those concerns, @ Properties has been buying permits for its employees to park in the village lot and will pay to eliminate curb cuts on Green Bay, which no longer serve driveways, thus creating space for three more cars to park.

At the Jan. 10 Village Council meeting, John Louis, who owns Massage Therapy Center of Winnetka, at 40 Green Bay Road, tried to present a new parking study to counter the one traffic consultant KLOA had done Feb. 19 and Feb. 22 for the real estate company. At previous meetings, Louis had dismissed KLOA’s conclusions that sufficient parking spaces existed in the area to handle the expansion and said he had firsthand experience of the parking shortage after 22 years working there.

Winnetka Village President Jessica Tucker and Attorney Katherine Janega told Louis it was too late to present new evidence on the issue.

“The record has been closed since the (Zoning Board of Appeals),” Janega said. “To, at this juncture, start going into new evidentiary material that no one has had a chance to look at . . . .is very unusual.”

Real estate offices require special use permits in Winnetka, and @ Properties’ request to expand, therefore, was subject to review by the village’s Zoning Board of Appeals in November and Plan Commission in October, prior to a vote by the Village Council.

The company’s proposed 20-feet by 50-feet addition at the rear of its one-story building also exceeded the village standards for lot coverage and rear-yard setback.

Both the ZBA and the Plan Commission recommended the Village Council approve the change to the special use permit, although the ZBA recommended the zoning variances not be allowed.

Louis last week said a study done by Desman Associates, specialists in parking and transportation planning, would support his and neighboring business owners’ contention that the expansion would create “an incredible parking problem for both our employees and our customers along Green Bay Road.”

Village Trustee William Johnson suggested the council postpone its vote to consider the parking issue and the additional impervious surface the addition would bring to the site, a concern voiced by a few residents at the meeting. But other village officials saw no benefit from delaying the vote.

“I don’t see how a delay is going to do anything here,” Trustee Richard Kates said. The addition “is not going to be built tomorrow. By the time it is (built), the Highland Park office will be open.”

“I live in that neighborhood and I feel your pain,” Trustee Jennifer Spinney said. Her theory is New Trier High School, which is a little north and on the other side of the railroad from the site, generates the most parking demand. When New Trier is in session, she said, “an entire village gets imported to your area.”

“What has been clear is that there have been parking issues in Indian Hill not related to this use,” Janega said. “Does that mean the parking issue in Indian Hill is a closed issue? Absolutely not, she said. “The Village Council can add conditions in the future if there is (evidence) that there is a parking problem generated by this specific use, rather than conditions in the area generally.”

Scott Sandee, a financial adviser at Northern Trust, had offered one suggestion. The bank, at 62 Green Bay Road, has 36 employees, some of whom pay to park in the lot. When the lot is full, however, they have to park on the street where parking is limited to 90 minutes.

“We are not anti-expansion, “ Sandee said. “That is our business. . . . We want to get along with everybody, (but) there is a parking issue. I myself have gotten multiple tickets.”

Sandee suggested that drivers who have paid for a parking lot permit not be required to move their cars after 90 minutes if the lot is full.

The village trustees said that idea and others, such as reviewing the number of parking permits issued to New Trier drivers, could be evaluated to improve the parking situation in Indian Hill.