Monee-Area Truck Yard Gets 8-Foot Fence Despite Adverse Findings

Will County Planning and Zoning Commission | October 20, 2026

Article Summary: The Will County Board Planning and Zoning Commission on Oct. 20, 2026, approved a variance allowing an 8-foot security fence inside the street setback at a 39.77-acre industrial parcel on Manhattan-Monee Road in Green Garden Township — even though county staff’s own findings concluded the fence “may alter the essential character of the locality.”

Manhattan-Monee Road Fence Variance Key Points:

• Variance V-26-189 raises the permitted fence height in the street setback from 4 feet to 8 feet.
• The fence would sit 12 feet from the right-of-way, inside the I-2 district’s 50-foot street setback; original plans put it more than 100 feet back.
• Staff found no other parcel in the locality has received such a variance and no fences taller than 4 feet appear in the street setback nearby — yet recommended approval.
• West Manhattan-Monee Road carries about 5,900 vehicles a day and is identified in county plans as a future primary freight corridor.

WILL COUNTY — The Will County Board Planning and Zoning Commission on Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2026, approved a fence height variance for vacant industrial property on Manhattan-Monee Road in Green Garden Township, clearing the way for an 8-foot fence to be built far closer to the road than the county’s zoning ordinance normally allows.

The case, ZC-26-077 (V-26-189), lists Storage Squares LLC as owner of record and Bill Zalewski of Advantage Consulting Engineers as agent. The motion passed on a roll call with no votes against recorded. No objectors appeared.

The parcel is zoned I-2 with 39.77 acres and 1,297.72 feet of frontage along Manhattan-Monee Road, and is a conforming I-2 lot against the district’s minimums of 10,000 square feet and 80 feet of frontage. In 2024, under case ZC-24-027, the parcel was approved for a map amendment from A-1 to I-2 along with special use permits for a truck terminal, outdoor storage and an accessory dwelling unit for security, plus a variance increasing the accessory dwelling unit size from 650 to 720 square feet. The zoning action was intended to let the owners expand an existing trucking business on the adjacent parcel to the east at 11349 W. Manhattan-Monee Road. The applicant later chose to demolish the security residence rather than keep it.

The fence question arose during review of site development permit SDP-24-CI017. Staff reported the applicant asked to move the planned eight-foot fence from more than 100 feet off the right-of-way to 12 feet from it, placing it inside the 50-foot street setback for the I-2 district. Under Section 155-14.90(C), fences in a street setback may not exceed four feet in height in any district except agricultural zoning, where five feet is allowed.

Alec Van Patten of the Will County Land Use Department said the relocation is driven by the detention pond. “The new fence location puts it around the detention pond to prevent trespassers from being able to access it,” he said, adding that the pond must sit where it can mimic how stormwater naturally flowed off the site before development, so it cannot be moved to let the fence both secure the pond and stay out of the setback. The applicant also cited snow plowing.

Two of the staff findings ran against the applicant. On the requirement that a variance not alter the essential character of the locality, staff wrote: “Staff finds that if the variance is granted it may alter the essential character of the locality. There are no parcels that have received a variance for maximum fence height in the street setback.” On whether the conditions would apply generally to other property in the same classification, staff found they “would be applicable to other I-2 parcels,” calling taller setback fencing “a common request for industrial and commercial uses across the zoning districts.” The same report quotes the ordinance standard that no variance may be approved unless the commission makes both findings in Section 155-16.70(I)(1).

The only question from the commission concerned sight lines. Asked whether the fence would create a line-of-sight problem for traffic, Van Patten described the vision clearance triangle — roughly 70 feet from the road and 70 feet in each direction — and said compliance with Section 155-14.80 at the site entrance means “that will not be an issue.”

County transportation planning documents cited in the staff report identify parts of Manhattan-Monee Road west of Interstate 57 as planned primary freight corridors, including widening to four lanes from U.S. 52 to Center Road in the 2040 plan, and reconstruction to three lanes from U.S. Route 45 to Ridgeland Avenue as a need in the 2050 plan, Our Way Forward.

The property is in the Prairie Creek Watershed with a Zone A floodplain at the northwest corner. Soils are Ashkum silty clay loam, 0 to 2 percent slopes, which is hydric, and Elliott silt loam. The conservation district’s Natural Resource Information Report #5582, dated Feb. 13, 2024 and carried over from the 2024 zoning case, urged a soil erosion and sediment control plan to keep sediment out of Prairie Creek and the Manhattan-Monee Road ditch and “strongly discourages using existing field tiles as storm drain outlets.”