Woodstock Plan Commission Questions Developer’s Woodstock Station Plans

By the slimmest of margins the Woodstock Plan Commission advanced Wilmette developer Ken Rawson’s plans for 91 new single family homes downtown to Woodstock’s City Council, voicing numerous concerns about details of the proposal. Commissioners suggested that a denser multi-family development on the former Die Case factory property now in the City’s downtown TIF district would bring greater benefits to downtown merchants and restaurants, and be more compatible with a transit oriented development.

The City of Woodstock has nearly finished paying off $2.5 million in municipal bonds issued to pay for environmental clean up of the site, and has waited 15 years for a viable development proposal following bankrupcy of the builder who put up ten luxury townhomes on a portion of the site a decade ago.

Rawson, through his Windsor Trent LLC, proposes small lot single family homes selling for $200,000 up to $250,000 to appeal to millennials and seniors seeking to downsize. Expressing his frustration with commissioners’ objections to his proposal, Rawson said, “They need this worse than we do.”