An Illinois appellate court is siding with the operators of a Peoria County gravel pit in a long-running zoning dispute.
FLM Enterprises bought 80 acres off Truitt Road in 2007 for $640,000. The land is just west of a residential Chillicothe neighborhood and north of Illinois Valley Central High School. At the time, Peoria County's Department of Planning and Zoning told the owners via letter that a 1974 non-conforming use permit allowing for mining on the agricultural land was still valid.
But in May 2016, the department ordered FLM to cease and desist gravel pit operations because the permit was invalidated by a 10-year-period of inactivity between 1983 and 1993. But FLM said a three-acre stockpile of materials continuously stored on the property since the '70s justified the continued permit.
The city of Chillicothe and 734 others registered objections to the gravel pit operation with the Peoria County Zoning Board of Appeals in 2016. The zoning board and Peoria County Circuit Court Judge James Mack both subsequently upheld the zoning department's permit revocation.
But last month, the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that was unfair to revoke the permit in 2016, nine years after the zoning department first told FLM it was still valid.
"The Department informed FLM that the certificate was valid, and the company expended large sums of money to purchase the property in reliance on a valid certificate. The Department then waited nine years before revoking it," the three appellate judges wrote in a unanimous opinion. "In light of these circumstances, it would be inequitable to allow the Department to revoke the nonconforming use certificate."
The appellate court is ordering the zoning board of appeals to reconsider the case.
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