Can Homewood Weather A Legal Battle For Calumet Country Club?

HOMEWOOD, IL — Attorneys for Arizona-based Diversified Partners notified village trustees this month that it intends to sue to disconnect the property from Homewood. The plans are to annex the 130-acre Calumet Country Club golf course to Hazel Crest and replace it with a 1-million-square-foot industrial park.

But can the company actually do that? Under what grounds? Does Homewood stand a chance?

Good questions — and ones that Homewood's Village Attorney Christopher Cummings indicated should leave everyone with some trepidation.

At a special meeting about the issue last week, Cummings explained that Illinois municipal law lists six factors property owners must prove to disconnect from a property. Those laws, he said, clearly favor the property owner. Cummings pointed to the most recent case: In 2002, Palos Country Club was annexed to Orland Park and eventually became a gated residential community, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Those factors are:

1. The property must be on the border of the municipality.
2. It must be larger than 20 acres.
3. It can't leave isolated the municipality it's disconnecting from.
4. The growth prospects, planning and zoning of the area must not unreasonably disrupt the municipality.
5. It would not severely disrupt major services, such as sewer systems and street lighting.
6. The municipality cannot be harmed by loss of tax revenue.

Diversified Partners can clearly prove the first three, Cummings said.

There is some wiggle room in pushing back against the plans for industrial use because the plot is currently zoned for open space, he added. But the burden is on Homewood to show the new development would unreasonably disrupt the village.

The village may be able to prove some disruption of services because a storm sewer could be affected — but that issue needed further investigation at the time the meeting was held.

Finally, Cummings said, the golf course pulls in about $271,000 in taxes. Homewood's portion of that is 10 percent.

A legal fight won't be easy.

But if last week's meeting is any indication, Homewood is gearing up for a battle.