Mundelein delays impact-fee vote on Ivanhoe Village after hours of public comment

Mayor (name not specified) opened the March 10 Mundelein Village Board meeting by saying an impact-fee ordinance related to the Ivanhoe Village development had been pulled from the agenda to give the developer and affected school districts another chance to meet. “That was pulled from this, agenda last week…so tonight is a short agenda. There's nothing regarding Ivanhoe on the on tonight's agenda,” the mayor said.

The village’s move followed more than two hours of public commentary, in which parents, retirees, teachers and school officials pressed the board for transparency and negotiations that protect existing taxpayers and school quality. Tam Shaw, vice president of the Fremont District 79 Board of Education, cited a Johnson Research Group impact study and told trustees the district faces an estimated net annual shortfall of $1,560,000 from the Ivanhoe Village project because the buildout is predominantly residential. “Any shortfall from the developer, who will be the source of nearly a thousand new students to our schools, will force us to go to referendum sooner than we anticipated,”…