Plan Council Minutes 2013 11-14-13Page 1 of 3
APPROVED 4/10/14
PLAN COUNCIL
Thursday, November 14, 2013
9:00 a.m.
Yorkville City Hall Conference Room
800 Game Farm Road, Yorkville, IL 60560
Attendees:
Krysti Barksdale-Noble - United City of Yorkville
Peter Ratos – United City of Yorkville
Bart Olson – United City of Yorkville
Julie Morrison – Engineering Enterprises, Inc.
Jerry Kotowski – I.E. Consulting
Dave Gravel – Green Org/ENDD
Gregg Ingemunson – Attorney
The meeting was called to order at 9:00 a.m. by Krysti Noble.
The minutes from the July 25, 2013 meeting were approved as submitted. There were no meeting minutes for
the August 2013 meeting because it was cancelled. There were no comments or corrections to the July 25, 2013
minutes.
The first and only item on the November 14, 2013 agenda is:
PC 2013-15 & PC 2013-16 Green Organics Application for Rezoning & Special Use - Ms. Noble started
with comments: Staff went through the actual application as well as the annexation agreement for the Westbury
Village, which is also affected by this. In general, the property is approximately 57 acres currently. There is
lease land of about 31.88 acres of where Green Organics is conducting a compost facility and landscape waste
(with some food waste) operations. They are currently on the county parcel as well as a portion of the city
parcel in Westbury Village. They are looking to reconfigure their site.
She asked Mr. Dave Gravel of Green Organics for some background on what they’re trying to do. In 1999,
Green Organics acquired the operation from Scott’s and have been operating since that time. The original site
has an “L-shape” configuration, with the southern portion currently under lease (until 2014) with Ocean
Atlantic. In order to maintain their present operation here, they are exploring options to re-configure the site.
They approached one of the other land owners, Bristol Ventures, which owns the rectangular, most northern
portion, with the thought to reconfigure and add on land adjacent to that. There are no proposed changes to the
County side – all proposed improvements are for the City side of the property.
The IEPA permit was originally for landscape material only; no manure or mushrooming products are accepted.
However, in 2010, the State of Illinois (through legislation known as SB 99) permitted compost facilities to
accept up to 10% of their total volume in food scraps. It is referred to as an additive from the EPA perspective.
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Ms. Noble then stated she looked at the PIN numbers and acreage and found a slight difference in the numbers.
They are going to eliminate 10.5 acres and will reconfigure about 9.5 acres on the city side. Mr. Gravel said he
would look at the numbers and would later verify them. He said they were losing portions of 13 and 9 and are
adding portions of 18, 19 and 22. Ms. Noble said they need verification from the IEPA of the 2010 exemption
from local citing process as long as all set backs are met and raw materials are in rows (as proposed). Mr.
Gravel said he would include a copy of the regulations from the IEPA in the application.
Ms. Noble asked if the property originally had to go through local citing and Mr. Gravel said no. He said he
thought that was part of the benefit of composting. Ms. Noble pointed out the IEPA still required set-backs and
Mr. Gravel confirmed and will prove it on the plan.
Ms. Noble confirmed he currently has a lease with Mill Roy Farms and a pending lease with Bristol Ventures.
She also noted it is overlapping with Westbury Village. She asked about the county’s hosting fee at $.60 -
$.70/ton for landscape waste. Mr. Gravel stated the ratio should be worked out between the city and county.
11.10 He also said that, from their research, it does not appear that many other compost facilities do, in fact,
have a tipping fee. Mr. Olson asked him if they got the survey and statistics from the other ones as far as what
they do and their total dollar amount. No answer given.
Ms. Noble asked what Mr. Gravel could tell them about meeting the city’s decibel levels at property lines (<60).
He said since it was considered a ‘moving operation,’ the levels vary. He offered to check the levels of the
loaders.
Mr. Olson asked about the size of the trucks, were they full semi loaders/dump trucks? Mr. Gravel said they
had three levels of sizes they use: packer (dump) truck, contractor and transfer.
Ms. Noble said they found out there were previous violations so a F.O.I.A. was filed with IEPA and found out
the violations were for the previous property 15.15 owner (Scotts) in 1999. There was follow-up in 2001 and
since then, Green Organics has been in compliance. Ms. Noble recommended: they continue to review reports
and forward results to the county; a plat of survey, with parcel numbers, on file that shows locations of
operations and processes; and up-to-date copies of state permit updated related documentation from IEPA.
Operational personnel must be on-site at all times and the city requires a contact person available 24 hours a day
as part of their conditions.
They are in BKFD’s area, and since they require a key in a lock box, Ms. Noble wants the city’s Building
Department to have a key to the lock box. She also wants Green Organics to authorize: her and Pete Ratos to be
out on the property during regular business hours if there’s ever a need for testing or an inspection; as well as
copies of water and sewer sample reports (taken by independent labs) as required by the IEPA.
Ms. Noble said she knows the county is proposing to have a sunset clause in their special use, and they are
approving a 10-year term. She was looking at their lease on the city-side, and it states a 5-year term with a
renewable 5-year term. At this point, city staff is comfortable with allowing a total 10-year. Ms. Noble is going
to recommend a 5-year with a review. She knows there’s a clause in the county contract that states anytime
residential comes into play, their uses would cease and they have that understanding with the landowner. She
would like to see that memorialized in the city agreement. If there is a turnover, there would be a simple review
by the Plan Commission again to just renew their Special Use with the same conditions.
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Mr. Gravel would prefer to keep it the same as the county, but he understands the city’s position by trying to tie
it to the actual lease (land use) portion. He said it should work for the 10 years, or until the property is sold (or
something to that effect).
Ms. Noble did the Comprehensive Review and right now they are requesting a re-zoning to A-1. She doesn’t
know if that’s the right route to take now. They are thinking R-2 with Special Use because they already have
the ability in the current Annexation Agreement to allow them to have those uses. What they’re going to do is
look for an amendment to the Westbury Agreement to define that they can now shift the use onto parcels that
were not used previously – instead of re-zoning.
The 2008 Comprehensive Plan update designates the subject property as “Suburban Neighborhood,” which is
intended to be a residential area primarily comprised if single-family detached residences. They are not
currently in conflict. Ms. Noble said she gave them a copy of the history of the Westbury Village Annexation
Agreement. She said the city does have a lien on some of the property in Westbury for $500,000, but it does
not affect their parcel.
Mr. Gravel had a question for Ms. Noble on the Landscape Plan. He felt it was “a little much” to request they
have a landscape plan because the facility is temporary. They will be providing a berm, and they would like to
request that the landscaping, other than ground cover, not be required. Ms. Noble asked Mr. Gravel to provide
her with a section of the berm so she could see how high it would block off visually. It was suggested that
maybe since Green Organics is not landscaping they might want to make a token donation toward trees to
replace the diseased Emerald Ash Borer trees that were removed throughout the city.
Julie Morrison, from EEI, only wanted to point out the storm water report and the cross-section for the detention
basin and wanted to know if Mr. Gravel would be looking for any variances or is it something they can revise to
fit. He asked if it referred to the size of the pond and she said it was the slopes. He said they can certainly
adjust to 4:1, 3:1 slopes, and look at 5:1, although that might be a little tricky. They will definitely look at it. A
2:1 can be held in place and easily be maintained.
She also brought up Com Ed and it is always an issue when there is a detention basin and the water discharges
to property you don’t own. Mr. Gravel is going to look at options to see what can be done to not make the point
of discharge a concern – maybe a level spreader to avoid erosion. He also wanted to bring up a good deal of
that water is going to get re-used in processing on site.
Mr. Sanderson confirmed with Ms. Noble that Zoning information should be on the site plan and the plat,
showing all PIN numbers.
Ms. Noble will be sending an amended schedule of meetings.
The meeting ended at 9:37 a.m.
Minutes respectfully submitted by:
Bonnie Olsem, Administrative Secretary