Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Street Vacation topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Beloit council approves two street vacations to allow Lincoln Academy expansion
Summary
The City of Beloit approved two resolutions to vacate portions of Morris Avenue and Spruce Street so Lincoln Academy can expand onto adjacent properties owned by the Hendricks Family Foundation; both votes were unanimous. A resident urged the council to preserve nearby residential zoning and asked for protections against federal immigration-enforcement activity on public land.
Planning staff told the council the city received petitions to vacate two small public-rights-of-way as part of a planned expansion by Lincoln Academy. The portion of Morris Avenue between Henry Avenue and Spruce Street and a stretch of Spruce Street just south of Morris are now largely surrounded by properties owned by Lincoln Academy and the Hendricks Family Foundation, staff said, and no longer serve independent driveway access for adjacent residences.
The planning and building services staff explained that the Planning Commission reviewed both petitions at its December meeting and voted unanimously to recommend approval. “This right of way currently provides access to the Lincoln Academy. It is the only right of way providing access to the driveways of 7 residential properties, along Morris,” planning staff said, and added that those access needs have been addressed by changes in ownership and the academys expansion plan.
After opening and closing the required public hearings with no in-person speakers, the council considered each vacation separately. The motion to approve the Morris Avenue vacation was made and seconded and the council approved it by voice vote (recorded as passing 6-0). The council then approved the Spruce Street vacation by the same process (recorded as passing 6-0).
At the public-comment portion of the meeting, Jenny Hoople of Beloit urged additional actions unrelated to the vacations: she asked the council to adopt local protections to limit where federal immigration-enforcement officers may use public properties for staging and to restrict arrest locations in order to reduce impacts on schoolchildren. Hoople also said she was disappointed that written comments opposing the Lincoln Academy zoning change had not been read aloud at a prior meeting and urged the council to deny zoning changes that convert taxed residential parcels to untaxed school property; she asked the council to report how much of Beloits property-tax base was lost by recent zoning decisions.
The council did not reopen zoning decisions at this meeting. Both vacation resolutions were presented as narrow, site-specific actions to support Lincoln Academys campus plan; the Planning Commission and city staff recommended approval and the council adopted each resolution by voice vote.
Next steps: the approved vacations remove the public-rights-of-way from the citys street system and allow the reorganized property lines needed for the academy expansion to proceed. Any future zoning or development approvals related to the academy would need separate council action.
