Return of the Brookfield Beast

The City Council meets again this week. There is so much on the agenda I’ll be surprised if they get through it without going overtime. Here’s my take –

BEWARE THE BROOKFIELD BEAST (Item #20)

Not content with having helped elect 3 council members and then arranged to have them grant Brookfield special exemptions, ignore the residents, pay no attention to the staff, and ignore the Planning Commission (PC), Brookfield Homes is once again on the march to reduce the quality of life for people who live in Lake Forest.

The Council let them slip in 43 tandem parking garages which they agreed would constitute one long garage 11’ x 40’, despite the fact that everyone knows tandem parking is not really parking for 2 cars. But by allowing tandem parking, Brookfield was able to produce more units and make millions of dollars more in profits (a pittance of which they gave directly to Robinson and Voigts, and even more that they used to help Robinson and Nick).

Now they’ve slipped past the Planning Commission and gone directly to the Council on an issue that certainly should have gone to the PC first. Brookfield wants to reduce the size of the tandem garages from the agreed upon 11’ x 40’ to 10.6’ x 38.2’. They claim they want to do this so they can provide “overhead storage in lieu of ground level storage”, and that this will increase the amount of ground level space because it will let them remove a “narrow 12” storage niche along one wall”. There will still be 147 homes.

The City staff in their report indicated that the minimum configuration for a tandem garage should be 10’ x 40’. Brookfield’s original agreement of 11’ x 40’ let them brag that they were providing “oversized garages” as part of the incentive to have this project approved.  

Reducing the length of the tandem garage seriously makes it too short for most uses. At 40’, the garage can just about accommodate two cars as well as two medium sized (65 gallon) waste containers.

• What happens if you want to use a 95 gallon container? – Oops

The so-called “nominal 5% reduction in garage width and length” is not so nominal when you realize that the 10’ x 40’ dimensions are already tight for many people.

Bear in mind, Brookfield intends to target families with young kids, and this means large SUVs, often 2 large SUVs in a single family. 2 large SUVs will not fit in the 10’ x 40’ space, so reducing the length to 38.2” is critical.

According to Brookfield, their design is meant to house cars like the Ford Edge, which is 15’4” long, or at most, the Chevy Tahoe which is 17’ long.  But both these measurements are below average. The average length of a car is 16’4” and the average length of an SUV is 18’

There are currently 55 SUVs longer than the Chevy Tahoe that Brookfield uses for their calculations. Here are a few of them, many of which are best sellers in their class –

• Ford 350 – 21.9’

• Chevy Silverado – 21.5’

• Ford F 150 – 20.7’

• Toyota Tundra – 20.6’

• Ford E series van – 19.7’

Bear in mind these lengths are minus any bumper guards, tow packages, cow catchers, etc. which are not uncommon in SUVs.

Now bear in mind that no one likes to go bumper to bumper with their own cars, so they are going to leave at least 6” of space between cars, and because 6” is tough to navigate precisely, the effective distance is more likely to be 12”.

It means even less likelihood of people using the tandem garages, and therefore completely undercuts the rationale in the first place.

MINIMAL SPACE NEEDED

Let’s do the math.

• Space away from the garage door – 6” to 1’

• 1 full size SUV (without bumper guard, tow package, etc.) – 19’ long

• Space between cars- 6” to 1’

• 1 car – 15’4” long

That’s between 39’ and 40’ and this assumes they are using the 65 gallon garbage cans and only have 1 SUV.

AVERAGE SPACE NEEDED

Now let’s be serious and look at what an average family with two or three kids has today

• Space away from the garage door – 6” to 1’

• 1 full size SUV – 19’ long

• Space between cars- 6” to 1’

• 1 Utility SUV – 17’ long

That’s a total of 41 to 42 feet of length that will accommodate an average family with 2 or 3 kids, assuming a full size SUV and a utility SUV and the fact that they need large garbage cans.

So the 40’ tandem, garage that is planned won’t work for an average family right now. If we down-size, the 40’ garage will work but it’s a tight squeeze with only 6” between cars, etc.

The bottom line is that at 40 feet the tandem garage is already inadequate. Reducing it to 38’2” will make it impossible for most people who will buy at Brookfield to use it for two cars.

This is not a minor change, but a major change. It should not be slipped silently past the Planning Commission and put on the desks of 3 council members who already voted Brookfield exemptions. This proposed change should be thoroughly examined by the Planning Commission before it is considered by the Council.

Mayor ProTem Nick and Councilman Bass are the only two people on the dais who haven’t been filling their campaign coffers from special interests, so we’ll have to look to them for a motion to move the issue to the PC. Voigts and Robinson have Brookfield money sticking out of their pockets, so we know how they will vote. But if Nick, Bass, and McCullough vote together, the issue will be moved to its proper place.

Tomorrow we’ll look at the rest of the agenda.