Outer-belt protest goes to high court
Landowners continue fight against state's protection of corridor

By William Presecky
Chicago Tribune, Tribune staff reporter
Published April 26, 2005

After failing to persuade the Illinois Appellate Court to invalidate the state's transportation corridor protection statute, 56 property owners in Kane and Kendall Counties will now ask the state Supreme Court to weigh its constitutionality.

Attorney Timothy Dwyer of St. Charles said Monday that he will file an appeal with the state Supreme Court to reverse the Appellate Court decision that upheld the state's corridor protection statute and affirmed the dismissal of his clients' lawsuit at the circuit court level.

Dwyer represents property owners with land in a corridor that the state has designated for protection from future development while it studies how the transportation needs of the booming area at the edge of Chicago's far west suburbs might best be met.

A media briefing at which the Illinois Department of Transportation will preview its findings of potential alternatives for the study area is set for Thursday in Yorkville.

Public information meetings to formally present the results of IDOT's transportation "alternatives evaluation" for the so-called Prairie Parkway study area are scheduled for mid-May.

State appellate judges in Elgin this month affirmed IDOT's authority to protect an approximately 400-foot-wide by 35-mile-long, north-south transportation corridor linking Illinois Highway 88, near Kaneville, and Illinois Highway 80, near Minooka.

Despite the outcome, Dwyer praised the Appellate Court for choosing to address the substantive issues of a lawsuit that was the first to challenge the decades-old corridor protection statute.

"Obviously we disagree with their analysis but ... had they remanded it back to the Circuit Court that would have been a 2 1/2-year delay," Dwyer said.

Despite some long odds, Dwyer believes "we have a fighting chance" at persuading the Supreme Court to accept the case.

"Not only is this a case of first impression, but it's a case where fundamental property rights and the constitution are at issue," Dwyer said. "The odds are not good but we're certainly going to try."

The protected Prairie Parkway corridor includes more than 190 properties.

The narrowed list of transportation alternatives that IDOT is set to unveil, including a possible freeway, is the product of an $18 million, multi-phase study into the future needs of the 1,600-square-mile, six-county area.