It’s not over yet – and won’t be until at least Feb. 6. The seven-member Oak Park Zoning Board of Appeals was missing two members on Tuesday night – one who had earlier recused herself and another who had a scheduling conflict – and fell one vote short of approving Oak Park and River Forest High School’s application for the variances in zoning needed to install four nearly 100-foot light towers in its football stadium.
Neighbors who oppose the lights have put a stay on a separate lawsuit filed on Oct. 31 in Cook County Chancery Court against OPRF, the Village of Oak Park, the Oak Park Zoning Board of Appeals, the Department of Community Planning and village zoning administrator Mike Bruce until after the ZBA’s ruling. The suit claims the high school needs a special use permit, not just variances, to install the light towers.
Steve Rouse, the chair of the ZBA, who voted for the variances along with two others, said that absent board member Alan Raphael would review the record from the meeting and render his decision at the board meeting on Feb. 6.
Raphael will need to review over an hour of closing arguments followed by the ZBA’s deliberations.
In his closing argument, Gene Armstrong, the lawyer for OPRF, contended that the school would suffer a hardship without lights because there is a growing demand for team sports, and the lighting would provide more field space. He added that there was no evidence that lights higher than 40 feet would cause injury to property in the neighborhood.
Mark Sargis, the lawyer for the neighbors who oppose the lights, countered that busing of student athletes to practices would continue with or without lights. Though he conceded a few less people would attend games, he asserted that does not make for an unusual hardship. He added that light and noise pollution and an increase in traffic would harm the neighbors more than the lights would help the high school.
Armstrong retorted in his rebuttal that OPRF could offer night football even if it was restricted to shorter light towers.
After the closing arguments, the ZBA discussed whether the high school would suffer hardship from being limited to 45-foot towers.
Rouse argued that the 45-foot lights were the worst options, while the 100-foot lights would be safer and bleed less light into the neighborhood. He added that busing of athletes to practices would decrease with the addition of lights.
Several board members, however, said they didn’t think the busing would be reduced enough with lights to make for a real hardship without them.
For Robert Schoen, who voted against the high school’s application, the deciding factor was that the lights would alter the essential character of the neighborhood.
Terry Lieber, one of the most active neighbors in opposing the lights, said she was “very disappointed we’re not walking out with a decision about the variance.”
