Crete Township Landscape Storage Yard Rejected After Neighbors Object

Will County Planning and Zoning Commission | October 20, 2026

Article Summary: The Will County Board Planning and Zoning Commission on Oct. 20, 2026, refused to recommend a special use permit that would have legalized a landscape contractor’s storage yard on a 2.5-acre residential parcel at 25555 Klemme Road in Crete Township, siding with county staff and a group of neighbors against the applicant.

Crete Township Storage Yard Key Points:

• A motion to recommend approval of the permit with five staff conditions failed; every commissioner who answered the roll call voted no.
• County staff had recommended denial, finding the yard “more typical of an industrial area than a residential setting.”
• The rear 1.38 acres of the parcel are leased to Campos Landscaping, which has operated there under an open zoning violation (case 26LU00012) since January 2026.
• Neighbors submitted 25 photographs, an affidavit and citations to two Illinois court decisions; one told the commission he has lived next door for 40 years.

WILL COUNTY — The Will County Board Planning and Zoning Commission on Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2026, declined to recommend approval of a special use permit for outdoor storage at 25555 Klemme Road in Crete Township, ending — at least at the commission level — an attempt to legalize a landscaping company’s equipment yard on a parcel surrounded by homes.

The case, ZC-26-046 (S-26-023), listed Ricardo Sanchez as owner of record and Ivan Campos as agent. A motion to recommend approval with the five conditions staff had drafted as a fallback was made and seconded, then failed on a roll call in which every answering commissioner voted no.

A Residential Parcel With an Industrial Use

The 2.5-acre property sits on the east side of S. Klemme Road about 500 feet south of Danne Road, with 165 feet of road frontage, and is zoned A-1 Agriculture. The A-1 district requires a minimum of 10 acres and 300 feet of frontage; according to Mapping and Platting records the lot was created Nov. 5, 1975, when the ordinance allowed one-acre A-1 lots, making it a legal nonconforming lot under Section 155-15.20 of the Will County Zoning Ordinance.

The parcel contains a one-story, wood-frame single-family home, a detached garage of 630 square feet and a metal barn of 1,459 square feet. The home and barn are treated as legal nonconforming structures under Section 155-15.40.

Under the application, the owner leases the rear approximately 1.38 acres to Campos Landscaping as a storage yard for landscaping equipment, vehicles and trailers, operating Monday through Saturday from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., with about 12 employees using the site to park personal vehicles and pick up and drop off work vehicles. The site would not be open to the public.

The property carries an enforcement history. In January 2026 the county received a complaint about a landscaping business on the parcel and Code Enforcement cited the owner for operating without the required zoning approval under case 26LU00012, which remains open. The Will County Resource, Recovery, and Energy Division separately cited the owner for dumping landscape waste on the site beginning in 2023 under case OP23-018; that violation was resolved in May 2026.

Marguerite Kenny, Will County zoning administrator, told the commission that even if the special use were recommended and approved, the zoning violation would remain in effect until a site development permit was issued. She also noted that if more than 25,000 square feet of new impervious surface has been added in connection with the storage yard, on-site stormwater detention would be required.

Staff findings were unfavorable on the first two review criteria in Section 155-16.40(I), concluding that the use “could negatively affect the comfort and general welfare of nearby residents” and “could reduce property values within the neighborhood.” Surrounding parcels are zoned R-1 and R-2 along with smaller A-1 properties. Klemme Road carries about 2,400 vehicles a day; Danne Road about 525; E. Exchange Street about 15,600; and E. Bemes Road about 1,450.

Commissioners Press on Hours and Scale

The chairman questioned the operating hours directly. “People are living there with pickup horns going at six o’clock in the morning, six days a week and going until 6:00 in the evenings, six days a week,” he said. “It kind of knocks the quality of living for the people who are there.”

Another commissioner asked whether Sanchez could run a landscaping business himself. Kenny said a home occupation would be “an extremely small operation — basically him and maybe one other employee,” with all equipment stored inside a structure and the principal business activity occurring from the house.

Campos told the commission his is “a small company” and offered concessions. “I’m willing to build berms, fences, whatever it takes — operate, you know, during 9 to 5 hours, 5 days a week, whatever it takes to make the neighboring properties happy,” he said, adding that six trucks are kept at the site, including pickups, medium-duty trucks and dumps.

Two residents spoke in opposition. One, who said he lives immediately adjacent, handed up a packet of 25 photographs, an affidavit from a neighbor and references to two Illinois court decisions he said establish that inserting commercial property into a residential area harms property values. He described a timeline beginning in late 2023, repeated calls to the county, a Jan. 13 citation and a second violation he was told would issue April 17, and said the business continued operating for eight months after being cited. He described engine noise, backup alarms and the sound of materials dumping, and said hard-packed gravel on the rear of the subject property has produced flooding on his own.

A second objector said he has lived at 2909 Danne Road for 40 years, is nearly 85, and worked as a realtor after retiring. “People want to live in the suburbs or out in the country,” he said. “They don’t want to live next to a commercial piece of property. And that’s what I fear most of all.”

Special use permits in unincorporated Will County are recommended by the commission and acted on by the Will County Board. Because the motion to recommend approval failed, no recommendation of approval was forwarded; the record of this meeting does not state what disposition, if any, goes to the County Board.