Orland Park trustees have agreed to enact a nine-month moratorium on granting business licenses and zoning approvals while reassessing the village’s economic development and land use plans.
Trustees voted 5-2 at the October 6 board meeting to impose the moratorium.
Trustee Cindy Nelson-Katsenes, who along with Trustee Bill Healy, voted against the moratorium, said, “As the economic engine of the Southland, I have concerns about Orland Park’s reputation enacting a 9-month moratorium on certain business licenses.
“Potential investors and entrepreneurs may view Orland Park as unwelcoming to new ventures,” she said.
Mayor Jim Dodge said that the idea behind the moratorium was to give the village time to update its comprehensive land-use plan and ‘strike the right balance’ in terms of the types of businesses coming into town.
“We haven’t updated our comprehensive land-use plan since 2013 and usually that is done every 10 years,” Dodge said. “Economic development changes, the economy changes.
“We have to be certain we attract the right types of businesses to the village,” he said. “We need to be on the same page in terms of what we want to bring to the village of Orland Park. We need to take a look at everything.”
What the village doesn’t need, Dodge said, is “100 different barbershops or nail salons and we certainly don’t want coffee shops on every corner.
“Along the I-80 corridor (from LaGrange Road to Will-Cook Road) there are probably several hundred acres of land and we need to make sure we find the right development to bring in there,” he said.
The moratorium was proposed by the Development Services Department, which is about to begin a full review of its comprehensive plan, which was last updated in 2013.
