Commission backs rezoning, special-use recommendation for 309-unit South Milwaukee Avenue project

The Vernon Hills Planning & Zoning Commission voted to recommend rezoning and to support a special-use planned-unit development for a large multifamily proposal on roughly nine acres at 13–73 South Milwaukee Avenue, but the special-use recommendation drew one dissent.

Developer Michael Fosone of Connor Commercial Real Estate described the project as a rental community with 309 units (the team said 291 apartments and 18 townhomes) in a wrap-style building with a parking garage. The applicant said the parcels had been in the founder’s ownership for over 20 years and the project evolved from prior proposals; Connor said the site is being designed both to connect to a future traffic signal and to function if an easement or acquisition across an intervening parcel (the locally referenced "Honey House" lot) does not materialize.

Key relief requested: the applicant sought rezoning from R‑1 (single‑family) to R‑7 (multifamily), special-use approval for a planned unit development, and related variances. The staff and applicant highlighted the principal technical requests that will be documented in the PUD motion: an increase in permitted density from 14.52 to 32.57 units per acre, increases in maximum building height from 35 feet to as much as 53 feet on the west and 65 feet on the east (with elevator towers to exceed those heights as required), and a reduction in the parking ratio from 2.3 stalls per unit to 1.83 stalls per unit. The applicant said the rooftop will be solar-ready, surface stormwater will be managed with underground detention vaults, and the design avoids mapped floodplain and wetlands in the development area per initial technical review.

Commissioners pressed the development team on several points: which public services and school districts would serve the site (the team said Stevenson and Lincolnshire Prairie View schools; fire protection is Lincolnshire-Riverwoods), whether an access easement across the Honey House lot could be secured (the applicant said that parcel is in title uncertainty and may be controlled by a public guardian), pedestrian connectivity to the Des Plaines River Trail and Brookdale, stormwater management (three underground detention vaults were described), the grade changes and a ramped lower service level for fire access, and tree preservation and landscape-maturity questions.

Votes and decisions: The commission moved to make findings of fact and to recommend rezoning; that motion passed unanimously on roll call. The special-use recommendation for the PUD and associated relief passed on roll call with one dissent (Commissioner Heidner recorded a no vote). The commission also approved a waiver of preliminary-plat requirements and recommended final plat approval subject to conditions such as technical review by village engineering, IDOT and Lake County, and documentation that fire district slope and truck clearances can be met. Staff said the commission’s recommendation will go to the Village Board as a committee-of-the-whole item on May 5.

Next steps and conditions: Conditions noted in the staff draft included verification of isolated wetlands by Lake County if required, demonstrating the fire-lane slope will not cause apparatus to bottom out (subject to fire district sign-off), screening rooftop units if they are visible, and PUD language documenting requirements should townhomes ever be separated into individually owned units. The commission and applicants agreed that additional technical items remain to be resolved in final engineering review before the board considers ordinance language.