Judge Gives Nod to Petition: Palos Park-Lemont Land Battle Wages On

Photo: Lemont Mayor Brian Reaves at a Cook County Board meeting this fall, attempting to stop the annexation of Cook County Forest Preserve land into Palos Park.

A Cook County Circuit Court Judge took a step last week that might interfere with the Village of Palos Park's annexation of Cog Hill.

Homeowners in Sunhill Subdivision, south of McCarthy Road and west of Bell Road in unincorporated Cook County, in December filed a petition to be annexed into Lemont, rather than Palos Park. A portion of the acreage—7 of 117 that Lemont seeks to annex—are in Sunhill, with the rest of the 110 acres making up about half of Gleneagles Country Club, the owners of which have successfully sought annexation into Palos Park.

Gleneagles and Palos Park filed objections against Lemont's Sunhill petition, which could potentially overturn that annexation.

Judge Carol Kipperman rejected four of five of those objections, determining then that the petition should be allowed to proceed. The order allows the residents, who currently live in unincorporated Cook County, to take one step closer to their ultimate goal of annexation into Lemont.

“We support the residents in their efforts to annex into our Village,” said Lemont Mayor Brian Reaves. “These residents clearly know which village they want to call home and we hope they will be allowed to become members of our community.”

The next step in the process is an evidentiary hearing to determine whether Palos Park at any time abandoned its petition to annex Gleneagles, Cog Hill Country Club and Mid-Iron Country Club into the Village of Palos Park. Palos Park's petition was filed a year ago, and approved by the municipality in January 2016.

Palos Park will provide "a ton of evidence" that it did not abandon its efforts, said William Hennessy, an attorney representing Gleneagles and Cog Hill, as reported by the Daily Southtown.

Lemont has argued that Palos Park delayed acting on the request for too long, making the Gleneagles petition dormant or abandoned, in turning making Lemont's petition priority. Palos Park has countered that the reason for any delay was its pursuit of first annexing a necessary 190 acres of property owned by the Cook County Forest Preserve District southeast of McCarthy and Bell roads. Despite extensive protests from Lemont, The Cook County Board in Oct. 2015 approved that annexation, giving Palos Park necessary to annex the Ludwig Farm property and Mid-Iron golf driving range, and the contiguity needed to extend its reach to Gleneagles and Cog Hill.

The communities will meet again in court on June 22, at which point they will each present evidence supporting why their petition takes priority. The judge is not expected to make a ruling at that time.