The Village of Cary's Zoning, Planning & Appeals Commission heard a mixed‑use redevelopment proposal for the Damish Farm property on Route 31 on July 17, 2025, in a meeting that stretched past 9 p.m. The petitioner, Fiduciary Real Estate Development, presented plans for roughly 360 market‑rate apartment homes behind about 4.7 acres of commercial frontage and asked the commission for a comprehensive plan amendment, a zoning map amendment, a final plat, a planned unit development (PUD) with multiple departures and a variance from the McHenry County stormwater ordinance. The hearing was continued to Aug. 21, 2025, so village staff and consultants can review additional materials.

The proposal matters because it would change the Damish Farm site's future‑land‑use designation from commercial to a mixed commercial/multifamily designation and rezone most of the parcel to R‑3 multifamily while leaving a commercial strip on Route 31. Brian Simmons, the village's director of community development, told the commission the comp plan and the Route 31 sub‑area plan support commercial frontage on 31 and housing behind it, and that the petitioner bears the burden to show the proposal meets the Unified Development Ordinance standards.

Developer Tony DeRosa, vice president of Fiduciary Real Estate Development, told the commission his company is proposing a two‑phase, two‑story townhouse‑style rental community with 234 units in phase one and 126 in phase two, totaling 360 units; approximately 44 percent one‑bedroom, 44 percent two‑bedroom and about 12 percent three‑bedroom units. DeRosa said the commercial area would total about 4.7 acres and could accommodate roughly 32,000 square feet of retail; he said the project has a roughly $100 million construction value, an estimated $1.4 million in annual property tax increment when fully built and an estimated $39.6 million of consumer spending impact over 40 years. The plan includes a roughly 5,000‑square‑foot clubhouse, a resort pool and a high‑end interior finish package the developer described as "condo quality." DeRosa also described changes made following an April neighborhood meeting: unit count fell from 396 to 360, a proposed dog park and a southern vehicular connection were removed, a stormwater pond was relocated to increase the buffer to the Cambria subdivision, and building setbacks at the east property line were increased (the presentation noted minimum east setbacks now ranging from about 159 to 186 feet along the east property line).

The petitioner listed five specific departures sought in the PUD application: reduced building setbacks along portions of the new internal and New Haven Drive alignments (some setbacks shown at 15–24 feet where code requires larger setbacks), a reduction in total off‑street parking to about 784 spaces (a 2.17 spaces per unit average versus the code requirement of 2.25), an increase in density to roughly 13 units per acre (code: 9 units per acre), modifications to sign regulations to allow additional monument signage, and a variance to the stormwater ordinance to increase detention drawdown from 72 hours to 96 hours for several basins on the site.

Jared Plasic (Manhart Consulting), the project's civil engineer, said the site contains high‑infiltration soils and an existing depressional storage area. Plasic said the design intentionally increases on‑site stormwater storage to exceed typical detention volume requirements and that the requested variance is limited to extending drawdown time (from 72 to 96 hours) so the basins can infiltrate using native soils; he said the original request had been larger and that the team reduced it while coordinating with the village's third‑party reviewer. "We're essentially doubling the amount of a typical stormwater" required on similar sites, Plasic said, and the longer drawdown is intended to let that extra on‑site volume infiltrate rather than be released downstream.

The project's traffic consultant, Louay Abuna (KLOA), described the report's methodology as following standard IDOT practices (weekday peak hours and Saturday counts) and said the developer coordinated the study scope with village staff before completing it. Abuna said the study included intersections along Route 31, New Haven Drive and nearby neighborhood intersections and modeled the residential and commercial trip generation using typical trip rates. The developer is also seeking a signal warrant and approval from the Illinois Department of Transportation for a new signalized intersection on Route 31 at the project's primary access. Abuna and staff said the study is being revised to incorporate multiple consultant comments; he said the revisions do not change the study's conclusions but the updated document and review are still in progress.

Much of the public comment focused not on the buildings but on a proposed extension of New Haven Drive west to Route 31 that the petitioner included in the plan and that is shown in Cary's 2015 comprehensive plan and Route 31 sub‑area guidance. Residents of New Haven Drive, Cimarron and adjacent streets said the connection would convert a long cul‑de‑sac into a through route, increase cut‑through and truck traffic, worsen safety for children and pedestrians, and depress home values. "If you really think this through ... you're going to come through New Haven," Chairman Patrick Corey said during the hearing, describing how drivers would re‑route; several residents recounted frequent walking and biking along the street and concerns about speeding. One resident cited a history of nearby signal decisions in Crystal Lake and urged the commission to consider how other, pending developments could change traffic patterns.

Commission members repeatedly pressed the petitioner and consultants for more data on substitution and cut‑through traffic from areas east of Cary Algonquin Road and asked whether the traffic study's study area should be expanded to include other pending developments near the train station and Maplewood proposals. Commissioner James Graciano told the petitioner that the commission must find facts that meet map‑amendment standards, including that adjacent property values "will not be diminished," and said he believed the packet lacked independent data to reach that finding.

The ZPA accepted public testimony and cataloged numerous questions for the petitioner to answer at a later date. After extended discussion, the commission voted to continue the public hearing to Aug. 21, 2025, at 6:00 p.m. for additional review of the revised traffic analysis, stormwater details and other materials. The petitioner agreed to work with village staff and the village's third‑party reviewers on additional study scope and to provide follow‑up materials for the board's packet.

Votes at a glance: the commission approved minutes from its June 12 meeting with corrections by voice vote earlier in the night; the panel later voted to continue the Damish Farm / Seasons at Cary public hearing to Aug. 21, 2025. The public comment period remains open and the ZPA will not make a final recommendation until it has reviewed the additional materials requested.

What happens next: village staff and the developer will exchange revised technical reports (traffic and stormwater), the village's third‑party consultants will complete reviews, and the commission will reconvene on Aug. 21, 2025, to continue testimony and deliberations. No zoning or map change was approved on July 17; the developer's requests remain pending.