The village was one step closer to having a billboard on the west side of Concordia Cemetery when the Planning and Zoning Commission approved it March 16 and recommended the village council do the same. But an error at that meeting requires the commission to re-vote on the billboard at its next meeting on April 20.
Approving the billboard entailed three things: a conditional use permit because the village code only approves billboards in industrial districts, and the cemetery is zoned residentially; a map amendment to reflect the change; and a plat of subdivision, so a small portion of the cemetery is rezoned and not all of it.
Steve Glinke, head of the village’s building department, said the plat of subdivision doesn’t require an official vote and is more of a formality. But the commission needed to vote separately on conditional use and the map amendment, rather than voting on them together like they did on March 16.
“That was my fault,” Glinke told the Review. “This is precisely the reason I need a planner sitting next to me.” Forest Park’s planning consultant, Muse, will quit working with the village at the end of the month because of the lack of progress on local projects. Glinke added, “We don’t want a legal challenge based on the process, and the billboard industry tends to be rife with litigation.”
The Planning and Zoning Commission originally approved the billboard March 16. Concordia Cemetery, a nonprofit, wants the billboard as a way to help finance future maintenance projects on the grounds.
Illinois law requires cemeteries to put 15% of every interment payment into a fund to pay for future maintenance of the cemetery. Concordia Cemetery’s interments are slowing down, though the cemetery still holds, on average, 100 to 200 services a year. Meanwhile, infrastructure issues are increasing as the Des Plaines River eats away at the cemetery’s western edge. So Concordia is looking for another source of cash flow, and ad revenue from the billboard stands to give the nonprofit a vital source of money for the foreseeable future.
“It’s our job to make sure that, in the long-term future, there’s enough money there, not only in the endowment fund, but also in the savings account, that the cemetery is self-sufficient,” said Kurt Carpenter, Concordia Cemetery’s executive director, at the March 16 PZC meeting.. “Even when there’s no more sales to be done, there’s no more interments to be done, it’s just maintained.”
Dissenting votes
The commission approved the billboard with a 3-2 vote. Board members Steve Rummel and Scott Whitebone voted no. There was no public comment at the meeting.
After Carpenter and Tom Moore, Concordia Cemetery’s attorney, presented information, commissioners asked questions. Rummel spoke first, wondering how the petitioner determined the billboard wouldn’t have an adverse light impact on Forest Park residents. Moore said they went to the site and looked around.
Moore added there are no residential properties near the site of the billboard, just I-290 and the Des Plaines River. He said the closest development is four-story condos for Residents at the Grove.
“It will only serve what it’s intended to serve, and that’s the people going by on the expressway,” Moore said at the March 16 meeting. “It will only have a positive impact for the cemetery. It won’thave a negative impact on anybody else.”
Carpenter said that, about four years ago before they were removed, three signs stretched from Concordia’s western to eastern edge. They took up 1,500 linear feet of highway frontage.
Whitebone said the new billboard wouldn’t meet the condition for approval that requires it not to be injurious to an adjacent property use or enjoyment. He also worried that, if the commission recommended the rezoning of the section of Concordia from a residential district to an industrial one, it would set a precedent that could lead to manufacturing in a neighborhood.
“This is kind of a one-off,” Glinke responded to Whitebone’s concern. “Each case has to be heard on its own merit.” He added that, in the case of the billboard, multiple professionals will be consulted since it’s so close to the river and its foundation must go 20-some feet underground.
Kerri McBride, who voted for the billboard, asked if it would be lit at night, though Concordia Cemetery closes its gates at 5:30 p.m. Officials said the billboard lighting shouldn’t have an adverse effect, since security and flood lights at the nearby Maybrook Courthouse and CTA rail yard are lit throughout the night.
The commission also asked if there could be an amendment that allows for Forest Park to post public notices and events on it. Glinke said he’d recommend that the village council make an amendment to include that when it votes on the billboard, since the commission would’ve had to vote on that amendment before voting on the conditional use permit and map amendment.