Sycamore Drive Project to Begin Over Neighbors' Objections

Residents from Sycamore Drive are working with their city neighbors on Elisa Drive to block village plans to connect the streets next spring.

A public hearing was held Monday during the regularly scheduled Mount Pleasant Village Board meeting. The hearing was the final step before trustees voted 6-1 to award the construction contract for the work.

Sycamore Drive is currently a dead-end street. Plans for the road include reconstruction, including adding curb and gutter, and adding a 30-foot wide throughway going east to connect with Elisa Drive, which is located in the City of Racine.

As they did in July, several residents reiterated their objections to connecting the streets. But Jackie Voisin, a city resident whose parents own a home on Elisa, said she is trying to petition the city to vacate the very end of the road to halt the extension of Sycamore at the border.

"If the city gives up its right to the property at the end of Elisa Drive, then Mount Pleasant can't connect and Sycamore stays a dead end," she said.

Voisin's primary objection to the project is because of the cost that will be assessed for the city to improve Elisa Drive so it can withstand increased traffic.

"Right now, that street is just a layer of blacktop, but it will have to be reconstructed to concrete with curb and gutter to hold up for all the new traffic," she added. "At $65 a linear foot, that's a lot of money for people."

Providing the throughway means heavy trucks like garbage and delivery vehicles and snow plows won't have to back up the street and can instead just keep going and then circle out to Kinzie or back to Washington Avenue.

Diane Grana lives on Sycamore and she said she gathered the signatures of 27 neighbors who also object to the extension portion of the project.

"But (trustees) just voted it through like it wasn't anything," she said. "This isn't for the good of the people who live there, this is for the good of them."

To address concerns of speeding, Trustee Karen Albeck said three stop signs will be installed, one of which will need the city's cooperation.

"One is going to go at Ostergaard and Elisa to help keep people from taking that corner too fast," she said. "That's where we need the city, but the other two will help control traffic on Sycamore."

Only Trustee Gary Feest voted against the project, saying he felt it was too rushed and not properly vetted.

Construction will begin next spring and is expected to last a couple of months. Willkomm Excavating and Grading in Union Grove came in with the lowest bid of $156,982.

Residents will be assessed for the improvement part of the project at a rate of about $13 per 100 feet of frontage, and they can either pay their amount up front or take five or 10 years to pay it off.