Forest preserve makes it tougher to sell county land

November 5, 2004

BY STEVE PATTERSON Staff Reporter
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With all the urban sprawl eating up open space in Cook County, the Forest
Preserve District handed down a pretty solid guarantee Thursday that more
than 67,000 acres will stay in their natural state.

District commissioners unanimously approved a new land-use policy that makes
it tougher to sell district land and ensures greater protections for it.

Commissioner Mike Quigley, who led the push for the new policy, said the
move "sends a clear message" that the district's lands are "not for sale."

"Once our open space becomes a strip mall or a parking lot, we lose a piece
of our natural heritage that can never be returned," he said.

Quigley has often railed about the "slippery slope" the district rides
whenever it considers a request for even the smallest slice of district
land, whether it's for a public right-of-way or town sign.

When the district sold 2.4 acres in 1999 to Rosemont so the town could
expand its convention center, the sale sparked demand for a new policy.

Now, it will take a two-thirds majority board vote to sell land, and only up
to an acre can be sold before several public notices must be given.

Benjamin Cox, executive director of Friends of the Forest Preserves, called
it "another sign that the district is really working to turn things around."

"It's an important step because it says to everyone, 'Stop looking to us for
our land,' " he added.

"Hopefully, it will work."

Lawsuit threatened

Also Thursday, commissioners gave district attorneys the authority to file a
lawsuit against DiPaolo Construction Co. if it does not remove some 140,000
tons of rock piled up at Fullerton Woods.

The company was hired more than a decade ago to remove tons of rocks from
the Deep Tunnel project, but that work has slowed to a near halt in recent
years.

Though district officials gave DiPaolo a March deadline, its officials said
it couldn't meet that, asking instead for 13 months. That brought the
lawsuit threat, but the board also gave attorneys the authority to continue
negotiating in hopes of reaching a compromise.