DGreport.com

Joel Andersen Homes Ltd. has put its 4.8-acre Nelson Meadow site up for auction, nearly four years after the village council approved its plan to build 11 homes on the parcel bordered by  Blanchard Street on the north, Jefferson Avenue on the south, Brookbank Road on the west and Carpenter Street on the east. The [...]

Champaign’s $96,000 study identifies tax surplus generating development. A buddy downstate emailed me this study, noting one other blogger already has written about it.  His point; there’s a temptation to simply do what generates surplus income for the municipality.

DuPage County has been seeking the ability to do whatever it wants to when it comes to developing real estate, under the cover of “affordable workforce housing” and “by right” use. Despite opposition from every community that is aware of it, the county continues to push this potential program towards their goal.

Editor’s note: Regular commenter Meat addresses the sensitive subject of intended teardowns that have became rental properties as a result of the softening housing market. I’ll be following up with more on Section 8s and other development issues that impact neighborhoods in an upcoming post. I liked Emma. Actually, I never really met Emma but [...]

The village council grappled with the stickiest of wickets Tuesday night, entertaining nearly two and a half hours of comments for and against Fairview Village’s petition to re-zone Lynn Gremer Court on the west side of Fairview Avenue from R-3 single-family to R-5a townhouse use. A respected corporate neighbor, Fairview Village proposes building four eight-unit [...]

It’s impossible to read the financial news out of New York and Washington without wondering how it will impact Downers Grove. Clearly, the local housing market may still be on the way down. A story in today’s Wall Street Journal describes the rise in foreclosures of million-dollar homes — this just two days after a [...]

It didn’t take long for the feedback to yesterday’s Sun column to begin trickling in. I wrote about our frustration with our state-mandated, hard-wired smoke detectors, which have the regrettable tendency to erupt at odd hours for no discernible reason. Like everyone else who attempts to update an old house in Downers Grove, we were [...]

I spoke with Fairview Village executive vice president Steve Stewart late last week to better understand why the senior adult community postponed the presentation of its petition to the plan commission last week. Stewart’s demeanor was professional and thoughtful, but it was also clear he is frustrated by the controversy surrounding plans to build four [...]

Fairview Village’s proposal to build four multi-family units on the west side of Fairview Avenue was to have been heard by the plan commission Monday, but for reasons that remain unclear, the senior citizen community put off submission of the petition. You’ll recall that Fairview Village’s plan to expand its campus across Fairview has raised [...]

When it comes to those Acadia on the Green residents who are disturbed by the Post Office’s inhuman clanging at all hours of the night, well, let’s just say I feel their pain. For the third summer in a row there’s major construction on our street and it’s loud, particularly at 7 a.m. when, if [...]