ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD

August 13, 1971

PARK MANOR

v.

)

PCB 71—190

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

Opinion of the Board (by Mr. Aldrich):

Park Manor filed a petition for variance seeking relief from the

Board~sOrder of March 31, 1971, in the case of League of Women

Voters of Illinois, et al. v. North Shore Sanitary District, PCB 70-7,

70-12, 70-13, and 70-14. That Order prohibited any new connections

to the District~s sanitary sewage facilities until adequate treat-

ment is demonstrated. Petitioner plans to construct a nursing home

on its lot in Zion, Illinois. Permission i~sought to tie the new

nursing home in to existing sewer lines.

In December of 1969, petitioner employed an architectural firm to

prepare plans for the nursing home. To date this service has cost

petitioner $36,000.00. The sum of ~,709.60 was paid to FHA as fees

on a mortgage loan of $903,200.00. Contracts were signed on

February 8, 1971, However, on learning of the ban on new sewer con—

nectio-ns, the lenders refused to close the loan until a letter is

received from the Board stating that the nursing home can be tied in

to existing sewer lines.

The nursing home is to be built on a site now occupied by a building

which, until recently, was used as a funeral home. Plans for the

nursing home have been approved by the State Fire Marshall and by the

State ~epartment of Health. A building permit has been issued and

the City has granted its permission to utilize the sewer connection

formerly used by the funeral home.

The statute requires that the Board, in deciding variance cases,

balance the hardship which would result should the variance be denied

against the harm done to the environment should it be granted. In

the instant case, petitioner had already spent in excess of $60,000.00

in preparations for constructing the nursing home before our sewer

ban was imposed. Denial of a variance would~ at the very least,

delay a project which the pepartment of Health, by issuing a Certifi-

cate of Necessity, has indicated the City needs. Such a delay might

increase costs sufficiently to make the project unattractive to

investors, thereby causing it to fail,

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Petitioner claims that wastes from the nursing home will not reach

the amount disposed of by the funeral home for approximately 1 3/4

years. Moreover, petitioner states that these wastes will place

considerably less burden on treatment facilities than did the largely

chemical wastes of the funeral home. Thus to deny the variance would

impose an arbitrary and unreasonable hardship on petitioner without

sufficient offsetting benefits to the environment. (The effects on

the environment of additional wastes are fully discussed in the Board

Opinion in League of Women Voters of Illinois, et al. v. North Shore

Sanitary ~

~

request for a variance.

The variance is hereby granted conditioned upon receipt of an affidavit

verifying the statements in the petition. This opinion constitutes

the Board1s findings of fact and conclusions of law,

I concur

I dissent

I, Regina E. Ryan, Clerk of the Pollution Control Board, hereby

certify that the Board adopted the above opinion this /3~day of

August, 1971

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