The president of the Canal Shores Golf Course is urging golfers to fight a plan to create a roadway easement across what’s now the course’s 10th tee in Wilmette
Chris Carey says the easement would destroy the tee area and much of the fairway as well as harm an “ecologically sensitive area.”
The golf course runs on both sides of the North Shore Channel through portions of Evanston and Wilmette.
Joe Keefe is seeking the easement from the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District, which owns the land, to provide access from Maple Avenue in Wilmette to an otherwise landlocked parcel in Wilmette owned by his Keefe Family Trust.
If the dispute seems familiar, that’s because the trust sought two years ago to gain an easement from Isabella Street to the south across land that lies in Evanston.
Evanston officials opposed that plan and it was eventually rejected by the MWRD.
The land involved in the current request is leased by the MWRD to the Wilmette Park District which in turn subleases it to the golf course.
In 2016 Keefe said he hoped to realize $2 million from the eventual sale of the trust’s property to a developer who he anticipated would construct four homes on the land, adding to the village’s tax base.
The park district’s board is scheduled to discuss the issue at its meeting at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Wilmette Village Hall.
197 Golf Terrace
According to Zillow, the house at the end of Golf Terrace is for sale (and has been for a while.) I don’t know that street at all, but it seems like it’s the one lot that actually connects to their property.
Surely everyone’s aware of that and there must be a reason they can’t go through there. That’s too bad. It would obviously be a lot more palatable to people than this or a future lawsuit.
Or he could just come back to Evanston checkbook in hand. As long as some of the money is for “Affordable Housing”…how could people object, right?
NIMBY: Save the Golf Course and the Oaks
The only sane and sensible solution is for the developer to purchase property to extend Golf Terrace, which is currently a cul de sac street, and obtain access from the north. Seriously, what type of developer purchases a wetland filled with swamp oak trees and then seeks to have public lands destroyed, so he can profit? Both the Chicago Transit Authority and the City of Evanston have refused to grant access to the site from their properties. The Metropolitan Water Reclamation District needs to do the same again. What is more troubling is that State Senate President John Cullerton (who has disclosed an interest in the developer’s group) is lobbying the MWRD now. This proposed road is actually worse than the previous plans that were rejected overwhelmingly.