Roundabout planned for Johnsburg intersection
By DIANA SROKA - dsroka@nwherald.com
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| Joby Peeples of Johnsburg applies primer Wednesday to the walls of the duplex that she owns with her husband, Don. The Peeples bought the recently vacated duplex at 2220 Johnsburg Road in 2000 and have been renting out the two floors. The house would have to be demolished to make room for a roundabout that is being planned for the intersection at Johnsburg and Chapel Hill road. "We've worked so hard on this property." she said. "We're heartsick, we really are." (Lauren M. Anderson – landerson@nwherald.com) |
JOHNSBURG – Don and Joby Peeples were counting on money from a two-flat that they rent out to get them through their retirement years.
But if a McHenry County Division of Transportation plan to improve traffic flow along Johnsburg Road moves forward, the Peeples’ investment house won’t exist by 2011. Instead, the house will be demolished to make room for a roundabout at the intersection of Johnsburg and Chapel Hill roads.
“I may be forced to give up something that I was planning to help me in my retirement years,” said Don Peeples of Johnsburg. “By law they’d have to [compensate] me, but the process is notoriously unfair.”
County officials said a roundabout is necessary to improve traffic flow of the 10,000 to 12,000 cars that travel through the intersection daily.
“Sometimes it’s necessary to impact some people more than others so that the greater good can benefit,” said Wally Dittrich, design manager for the McHenry County Division of Transportation. “We try to minimize the impacts as best we can, but sometimes the impacts are completely unavoidable.”
The roundabout would be the first in the county and is part of a larger plan that extends from that intersection west along Johnsburg Road to Route 31. Under the plan, the western corridor of Johnsburg Road would be widened to three lanes, with turn lanes at intersections. Traffic signals would be added at the intersections of Spring Grove Road and Riverside Drive, Dittrich said.
The estimated cost of the roadwork is $5 million, but Dittrich said about 80 percent of the cost likely would be covered by a federal grant from the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement program.
“It’s definitely new to this area,” he said. “[But] it lends itself to some landscaping and additional opportunities.”
A public hearing about the plan was held last week, and the public is invited to voice their opinion on the project through March 12. Letters can be mailed or brought to transportation division headquarters at 16111 Nelson Road, in Woodstock.
Tentative plans to improve the intersection were first introduced to the public in May 2008. But Peeples said he wasn’t notified by the county at that time about plans that would require his building to be destroyed.
“We were not brought in in the early discussions,” Peeples said.
His property isn’t the only property that would be affected. Part of the parking lot at the now defunct Johnsburg Tavern also would be demolished to make room for the roundabout.
Peeples said he has spent more than $100,000 maintaining and restoring his building at the northeast corner of Chapel Hill and Johnsburg roads. He’s exploring whether the building – which might once have been the Johnsburg Post Office – could be plaqued as a historic landmark, too.
Nancy Fike, McHenry County Historical Society Museum administrator, said she had begun researching Wednesday whether the building was a post office and whether it could be preserved.
“If the building is unrecognizable, then no,” Fike said. “The trick of it is to make sure it gets on a list. So far I haven’t found this on any list, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t qualify.”
In the meantime, Joby and Don Peeples are hoping another tenant will move into the home, at least until 2011.
The pair spent Wednesday cleaning, re-plastering, painting and washing walls to attract a new tenant after an eight-year tenant left last week.
“I need to make the asset as productive as possible,” Peeples said.
