Terry D'Arcy's New Joliet Subdivision: Here's Why Mayor Was Not Listed On City's Documents

JOLIET, IL — Joliet City Councilman Larry Hug said he wholeheartedly supports the Prairie Landing subdivision proposed by Mayor Terry D'Arcy and a businessman from Palatine named Bob Calzaretta — but that didn't stop Hug from raising a number of questions about the transparency of the new subdivision that will be built this year along Essington Road.

The Council voted 8-0 at Tuesday night's meeting to approve the final planned unit development for the Prairie Landing Subdivision and the recording plat. The development calls for 120 single family homes. D.R. Horton, dubbed the nation's largest home builder, will construct Prairie Landing for Joliet's mayor and his out of town business partner.

At Monday's pre-council meeting, the following dialogue took place between Hug and Dustin Anderson, Joliet's director of community development since last summer.

"OK, I wanted to ask if there's any ramifications from the Calzaretta misstatement if it will, listing himself as 100 percent," Hug remarked. "Dustin is going to address that."

Anderson explained the roles of Mayor D'Arcy and Calzaretta in the Prairie Landing subdivision development.

"With regard to the property disclosure form that was brought up," Anderson explained, "This is a document that I'm looking at. Anybody in this room can look at as well. You go to city of Joliet dot gov, meetings and agendas, find this, it's the plan commission board packet ... it was attached in the planning commission agenda as well, right? If you're following along at home, I'm looking at page 47 of 49.

"So, if you look at this form, it says information about the property. Property ownership. Limited liability is checked. I don't know if anybody else in the room has a limited liability corporation, but there's a managing partner, right? And then there's subordinate. You don't know really who's in that LLC, and it's not a matter that is necessarily disclosable in this form, right? There's no box for it.

"What's that limited liability company? What's the West Side Joliet Real Estate LLC? Robert Calzaretta, 100 percent manager," Anderson revealed. "That means he is the sole director of that LLC. The LLC could be comprised of many people and at the beginning of this process, it was disclosed who the two ownership entities that comprised the LLC were. On this form, it does not require you to disclose who is a member of that LLC. It requires you to disclose who is the managing member. And Mr. Calzaretta is the 100 percent managing member of that LLC.

"So, I could see where someone might come to the conclusion that there was an error or omission," Anderson continued. "I could see how that conclusion could be brought, but I don't agree that there was a misrepresentation of the ownership with the filings to the city because that is accurate. Mr. Calzaretta is the 100 percent managing member of that LLC and this was first daylit at a city entity to be heard, it was that the other owner of that LLC was Mayor D'Arcy."

In March and again on Tuesday night, Mayor D'Arcy abstained from voting on the Essington Road subdivision development, and remained in a nearby room of the Council Chambers during any discussion about the project.

During Monday's pre-council meeting, Hug declared, "I'm completely, if you have any faith or trust in me, I'm completely 100 percent comfortable with this project. And I know the law requires that they can't even move forward in building a first house if they don't put in a properly engineered storm water management system. Just like they can't do it if they don't put in a proper water system or sanitary sewage system."

Essington Road Subdivision Details:

According to City Council packets, the following is key information pertaining to D'Arcy and Bob Calzaretta's upcoming Essington Road subdivision project:

• Landowner Westside Joliet Real Estate LLC is in Palatine.
• D.R. Horton is the developer.
• The preliminary Planned Unit Development of Prairie Landing Subdivision consists of 120 single-family lots on approximately 44 acres.
• Lots are organized around a main road, which is accessed from Essington Road. The subdivision includes a small park lot and multiple storm detention areas.
• Proposed lots will be built to R-2 zoning requirements, which include a minimum lot area of 7,500 square feet.
• Proposed house plans include three models with around ten total elevations.
• Homes will be two-stories and approximately 2,000 to 2,600 square feet with four to five bedrooms, two-and-a-half bathrooms, and two-car attached garages.
• Front elevations include between 25 percent and 41 percent brick or stone, with an average of 34 percent.
• Prairie Landing subdivision will have a main access road off Essington Road along with interior streets that feed back into the main street. Road A is designed to connect to the undeveloped site to the east if that were ever developed.
• D.R. Horton intends to begin new home construction along Essington Road starting in May. The entire construction for Prairie Landing could take around three years, documents show

Related Joliet Patch story:

New Subdivision Unanimously Approved For Land Owned By Mayor Terry D'Arcy