Campton Hills planning commission continues comprehensive-plan hearing to June 18 to allow map, appendix and formatting fixes

The Campton Hills Planning Commission voted to continue its public hearing on the village comprehensive plan to 7 p.m. on June 18, 2025, to allow staff time to add missing materials and correct maps, formatting and wording issues before the plan is posted for public review.

The continuation motion, made by Ralph Kopec and seconded by Commissioner Anderson, passed by voice vote. The commission said staff would post the updated draft and make a printed copy available before the June 18 special meeting so residents have the required 15 days’ notice under the Illinois Municipal Code.

Commission members said the draft requires a handful of substantive and editorial fixes before it is forwarded to the village board. Among the items repeatedly raised were the absence of Appendix B from the updated draft, the omission of explicit water- or stormwater-management language in places where the prior plan listed related practices (for example, filter strips, bioswales and wetland restoration), and multiple map and legend problems on the land-use and open-space maps.

"Water management. So, it's missing from the updated plan," said an unnamed commission member who led the discussion. "It talks about conservation easement, stream and wetland restoration, conservation development, watershed development, filter strips, bioswales ... a lot of the things that are basic green roofs." That speaker and others asked that the plan explicitly include stormwater-management language that had been left out of the current draft and asked that Appendix B be posted in full alongside the draft.

Legal counsel (unnamed) advised the commission that the Illinois Municipal Code requires a public hearing on a comprehensive plan and that the commission may continue the hearing to a date certain, noting the statute requires publication of notice and a 15-day period before the first hearing but does not require the draft be in its final format when the hearing is continued.

Members described a range of editorial problems: inconsistent column formatting and pagination in the PDF conversion, missing or misreferenced figures and maps (for example, references to "see figure" where the document now uses maps), incorrect or outdated place names (the draft referred to the Northwest Tollway where speakers said it should read the Jane Addams Memorial Tollway), and captions referencing photos that were not present. Commissioners also asked that the plan include a clear disclaimer that some demographic and other data were sourced from CMAP and were not village-collected numbers.

Commissioners identified specific mapping corrections. They asked staff to ensure three maps are updated: the current land-use map, the future land-use map and the open-space map (map 3.2). Two properties were named for inclusion on those maps: the Snow property and the DeBaire (Anderson) property; commissioners said those properties are within the planning area and should be shown as conserved open space where applicable. Several commissioners also said township-designated open space printed in a pale shade on the version provided, making it difficult to distinguish from other categories; they requested clearer shading or a distinct color so the township open-space layer is visible when printed.

The commission also discussed the plan’s "town center" material. Members said the town-center concept had been developed with resident input in prior processes and that retaining it in the draft preserves an option to the village board; the draft also contains language stating the town-center concept is not binding and is one of several options presented to the public.

Jim Brown, the staff member assigned to finalize edits, was identified as the person who will incorporate the changes once he returns from vacation. Commissioners asked that Brown post the revised draft and Appendix B on the village website and make a printed copy available for public inspection prior to the June 18 hearing.

Next steps: staff will update the draft (formatting, map layers, Appendix B and the CMAP-data disclaimer), post the updated package online, and the commission will reconvene at 7 p.m. on June 18, 2025, for the continued public hearing. The commission may forward a revised draft to the village board after that meeting or schedule further work if additional edits are required.

The meeting record shows the motion to continue the public hearing to June 18, 2025, 7 p.m., was made by Ralph Kopec and seconded by Commissioner Anderson; the motion passed by voice vote. A subsequent motion to adjourn also passed.