ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD
June 28, 1977
CITY OF PONTIAC and PONTIAC REALTY,
)
INC.,
Petitioners,
)
)
v.
)
PCB 76—250
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY,
)
Respondent.
MR.JOHN A. BEYER OF SATTLER, EWING & BEYER, APPEARED ON BEHALF OF
PETITIONER;
MR. JOSEPH E. SVOBODA, ILLINOIS ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY,
APPEARED ON BEHALF OF RESPONDENT.
OPINION AND
ORDER OF THE
BOARD (by Mr. Dumelle):
This matter
conies
before
the Board on a Petition for a Variance
from Sections 12 and 39 of the Environmental Protection Act and Rule
962(a), Chapter 3: Water Pollution of the Board’s Rules and Regula-
tions to allow connection and operation of a sanitary sewer presently
serving two eight unit condominiums.
On December 15, 1975 Petitioner applied for a “construct only”
permit to install this sewer extension.
At that time the projected
date for completion of the improvements of the overloaded Pontiac
Sewage Treatment Plant was September, 1976.
This permit was issued
by the Agency on the condition that no permit to operate this sanitary
sewer would be issued until the treatment plant improvements were
completed.
Petitioner applied for a Variance to connect the sanitary sewer
line while the treatment plant improvements were still underway.
The
Agency filed its Recommendation, pursuant to Rule 405 of the Board’s
Procedural Rules, that the Variance be denied.
A hearing was held on
March 1, 1977.
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Petitioners feel that they are being forced to suffer an arbitrary
and unreasonable hardship because:
1.
Possession of the condominium units
is being held up
and the
purchasers are being forced to live in motels at
the developer’s expense,
2.
The developer is forced to make more interest payments
because the units cannot be occupied, and
3.
A housing shortage exists in Pontiac and connecting these
units could help to relieve that shortage.
The only evidence of motel payments by the developer is in an
affidavit that’was attached to the Petition for Variance.
That aff i-
davit stated that as of October 1, 1976, one couple and two single
persons were being accommodated at the developer’s expense.
At the
hearing it was disclosed that six of the condominium units were
occupied as of March 1, 1977.
There was no evidence at that time
thathardshipany ofwasthebeingpurchaserssuffered werein
disposingbeing
housedof
thein domesticmotels,
orwastethat
fromany1
the purchasers who had moved in.
The housing shortage and the developer’s construction and
interest expenses were not controverted at the hearing, however it
was established that the chief reason for the housing shortage was
the inability of the Pontiac Sewage Treatment Plant to take effluents
from any new construction.
Petitioners claimed that granting this variance would not cause
any additional loading on the City’s sewer system because most of the
purchasers who would be moving in were Pontiac residents.
Their argu-
ment was that these people would either be living in their own homes
or in Pontiac motels if they were not allowed to move in. The logic
of this reasoning fails when it is related to the Petitioners’
argument that the condominiums should be connected to help
relieve
the housing shortage and allow the purchasers to sell their homes
to others.
Throughout the hearing, Petitioners showed that possession of
these condominium units was contingent upon completion of the
im-
provements to the Pontiac Sewage Treatment Plant. At the time of
the hearing, the projected date for completion was May 15, 1977.
The issue may be moot. Throughout the record there is nothing to
show that the Petitioners’ hardship was anything but self-imposed.
Construction was undertaken, units were sold, and buyers were
allowed to move in in spite of the clear understanding and permit
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conditions that sewer connections had to wait for improvements to
the sewage treatment plant.
This Opinion constitutes the Board’s
findings of fact and conclu-
sions of law.
ORDER
It is the Order of the Pollution Control Board that the Petition
for Variance of the City
of Pontiac and Pontiac Realty, Inc. be
denied.
I, Christan L. Moffett, Clerk of the Illinois
Pollution Control
Board, hereby certify the above Opinion and Order were adopted on the
~g~4
day of
,
1977 by a vote of
‘V-o
(2A~~d1~14~L
A
Christan L. Moff~t, Cf~rk
Illinois Pollution Control Board
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