Lincolnwood Village Board of Trustees meeting on April 19
by CYRYL JAKUBOWSKI
The Lincolnwood Village Board of Trustees at its meeting April 19 approved an ordinance increasing the ambulance service fees, the water rate and parking fines.
The village has been charging people for ambulance services since 1992. The village board approved $150 increases in the fees for both residents and nonresidents.
For residents the charges will increase to $650 for Basic Life Support, to $850 for Advanced Life Support I and to $1,100 for Advanced Life Support II. The mileage transport fee will increase from $15 per mile to $17 per mile.
For nonresidents the charges will increase to $1,000, 1,150 and $1,400, respectively, and the mileage fee will increase from $17 per mile to $20 per mile.
The board increased the water rate from $8.28 per 1,000 gallons of water consumption to $8.69 per 1,000 gallons. The village purchases water from the City of Chicago, and the higher rate reflects a 5 percent increase that the city imposed on its suburban water customers in January.
The trustees also increased all of its parking fines to $30, including fines for parking within an intersection, parking on a crosswalk, bicycle violations, restricted parking on municipal lots for more than 2 hours, resident and permit parking and for abandoned vehicles.
The board also increased the application fee for construction in the right-of-way from $500 to $1,000.
The fee increases will go in effect on May 1. The village expects to raise $21,500 in revenue from the fines that will be allocated to the General Fund.
The trustees also approved ordinances for the creation of a new "S" school zoning district covering Lincolnwood School District 74 and its buildings at 6855 N. Crawford Ave., 6850 and 6950 N. East Prairie Road and 3925 W. Lunt Ave. at the request of the district.
The new zoning allows multiple buildings on a lot without a planned unit development and accessory uses customary for schools, including a private day care facility in the district that currently is being permitted as a special use. The new zoning also will allow administrative offices.
The board approved ordinances creating the new "S" district and amending the village code to vacate a portion of the unused Morse Avenue right-of-way in order to consolidate the school campus into one lot of record.
The trustees also will consider amending the Lincoln-Touhy Tax Increment Financing District intergovernmental agreement between the village and District 74 and Niles Township High School District 219. There is a provision in the agreement that if a residential development occurs on the Purple Hotel site, the tax increment must be declared surplus by the village and remitted to the taxing bodies.
Under current planned unit development plans for the site, residential uses are not allowed. The village would like to remove the prohibition from the agreement and replace it with a formula for reimbursing the school districts for expenses incurred on a per-student basis for school children generated by the development of the Purple Hotel site. Developers seeking to have a residential component on the site have approached the village.
Also at the meeting, the board approved a 6-year contract totaling $17,341,982 with Paramedic Services of Illinois for fire protection and emergency medical services.
The amounts of the contracts are $2,772,580 for 2016-17, $2,828,031 for 2017-18, $2,884,592 for 2018-19, $2,927,861 for 2019-20, $2,964,459 for 2020-21 and $2,964,459 for 2021-22.
The village board also approved a $36,000 contract with KGI Landscaping Company for landscaping maintenance services. The company will be responsible for the maintenance of medians, municipal facilities, parks and planting beds.
The board also directed the village attorney to draft an ordinance approving a building height variation for a new single-family home at 4525 W. North Shore Ave. The petitioner wants to construct a new flat-roof building, and the board approved the variation from the maximum allowed roof height of 22 feet to 23 feet and 9 1/2 inches.
The board also rejected a recommendation by the Zoning Board of Appeals and directed the village attorney to draft an ordinance approving a special use request and a sign setback variation for the replacement of a sign at the Mobil gas station, 7169 N. Crawford Ave.
The new property owner is seeking to replace the signs at the station. All freestanding signs designed as pole/pylon signs require a special use.
Village code identifies conditions that must be considered when considering special signs, including obstruction of the line of sight triangle, insufficient area to install a monument sign due to driveways, the existence of trees that would affect visibility and the existence of underground utilities that would prevent a monument sign foundation.
The trustees determined that the sign meets those requirements. The board objected to the sign orientation variation because the petitioner wanted to have the sign on a 45-degree angle, and instead they approved the orientation of the sign to be perpendicular to Touhy Avenue.
The also board approved a sign variation from the required 10 feet to the 7.5 feet from Crawford and 7 feet from Touhy.
The village board adopted the operating budget for fiscal year 2016-17 of $34,459,588, which is 12.5 percent less than the $39,390,828 budget for the current fiscal year. The $4,931,240 decrease in spending is due to the budgeted purchase of the Union Pacific railroad property.
The village’s general fund will decrease by 2 percent, from $20,035,310 to $20,404,689. The decrease is mainly due to the closing of one of the village’s tax increment financing districts.
