Glencoe applicant seeks zoning change to demolish home, construct six-unit housing development

A proposal to rezone the property at 538 Green Bay Road in Glencoe to make way for a six-unit, multi-family development received the first needed stamp of approval from officials earlier this month.

Glencoe trustees instructed the zoning commission to conduct a public hearing for the proposed development during the Village Board’s April meeting. The hearing will consider the rezoning of the property at 538 Green Bay Road from R-C single family to the R-D multi-family zoning district, according to village officials.

Village documents show the subject property is 26,397 square-feet and consists of three parcels located on the west side of the road and between Hawthorn Avenue and South Avenue.

Officials said at the April meeting that the three parcels currently make up one zoning lot, which does not include street frontage. As constituted, access to Green Bay is made possible by an easement across a parcel of land in front of the home that is owned by the Glencoe Park District.

The parcel owned by the park district serves as a common boundary to the south and west of the zoning lot, village documents say. Single-family homes are located to the west and north of 538 Green Bay Road, which is currently a single-family home.

According to Glencoe village code, the R-D zoning district — the applicant’s desired zoning change — allows single- and multi-family uses. Officials said at the meeting that all of the non-business-zoned properties south of downtown, on the west side of Green Bay Road, are currently zoned R-D.

The applicant, which village documents lists as Steve McGuire, is proposing the zoning change to demolish the existing home and subsequently construct a six-unit residential building. The current zoning district of the property does not allow such uses.

Access to the proposed building would be provided via Green Bay Road by the currently-in-place easement that utilizes part of the park district-owned property.

Chris Canning, an attorney representing the property owner, McGuire, said no variations are requested as part of the proposal, noting that he believes “a building of this character would be in keeping with many of the multi-family buildings that are located in Glencoe and on the west side of Green Bay Road.”

“We purposely wanted to design a building that would not seek variations, that would not be overreaching but that would be a fit within the character of Glencoe and this neighborhood,” Canning said.

John Potter, a partner at the architectural firm leading the project described the potential building as a “boutique six-unit building.”

As proposed, it would be three stories, with the ground floor dedicated to parking and the two additional floors above each with three units, Potter said.

According to the documents detailing the proposal, the sizes of the units “will likely range from approximately 1,600-2,400” square feet and will offer both two- and three-bedroom units.

A referral from Glencoe’s Village Board to the zoning commission is the first step in Glencoe’s rezoning process, said Taylor Baxter, Glencoe’s development services manager.

The zoning commission will next hold a public hearing on the proposal and make either a positive or negative recommendation to the Village Board. The applicant will then return to the board for a final determination.

Because this is a multi-family building, it will also need exterior appearance review by the Glencoe Plan Commision, Baxter said.

No precise project timeline was presented at the village board’s April meeting.

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