Oct. 21—Members of the Effingham City Council unanimously gave the green light Tuesday to rezone two residential properties in Effingham to pave the way for a business relocation to facilitate the Illinois Department of Transportation Fayette Avenue expansion project.

Last week the Effingham Plan Commission approved a site plan for O'Reilly Auto Parts, currently located at 1007 West Fayette Avenue, to build a new facility to the south of their current building occupying two parcels of residential property at 1000 and 1002 West Edgar Ave. owned by the Robert F. Utz Trust and William G. Utz.

The council's action Tuesday, from a recommendation by the Plan Commission, rezones those parcels from R-2 Residential Single-Family District to B-2 General Commercial District.

Effingham City Engineer Luke Thoele presented the changes to the council.

"The O'Reilly's Auto Parts Store is being affected by the IDOT/Fayette Avenue relocation," Thoele said. "They are looking to buy these lots and as part of that, we would need to rezone from R-2 to B-2. The Plan Commission held a public hearing at its Oct. 11 meeting and no one testified in opposition."

In another matter, council members approved increasing the number of R-1 restaurant liquor licenses from seven to eight.

The council adopted a resolution granting Los Amigos 5 Inc. an R-1 restaurant liquor license. The owners previously said they want to open their new restaurant by the first week of November in the former Pizza Hut building at 205 North Keller Drive.

Meanwhile, there may be more barks in the park as council members agreed in a 4-1 decision to an intergovernmental agreement between the city and Effingham Park District to allocate $30,000 of TIF funds from TIF District #1 to the park district's Effingham Bark Park project. The council agreed to the allocation on the stipulation there would be matching funds of $30,000.

"There is a sufficient match. Labor for the fence will be done with Park District labor," Effingham City Administrator Miller said.

"Mattoon has been bragging they are going to have the best dog park in southern Illinois. I'm challenging Effingham to make ours better than theirs, our fur babies deserve it," Commissioner Larry Micenheimer said.

Commissioner Merv Gillenwater was the only dissenting vote to allocate TIF money to the dog park.

Council members adopted unanimously a resolution to enter into a project services agreement between the city and the Farnsworth Group in the amount of $17,000 to provide design services for a 600 foot extension of water main and 1,300 feet of sanitary sewer along the future Ford Avenue ahead of the Ford Avenue Phase II Extension project. Funds for the 2022 Ford Avenue Water and Sewer Extension project will come from the Interstate North Business District fund.

Members of the council discussed a 9-0 decision made by the Effingham Plan Commission, after a public hearing, to recommend denial of petition by John H. and Gerry Lohman to rezone a small portion of their property 16871 North 1200th Street from NU Nonurban District to R-2 Single-Family Residence.

"They were looking to split off .6-acres from their 5-acre tract in order to sell it to one of his sons," Thoele said. "However, the NU zoning does not allow anything under two acres, so in order to do that they needed to rezone to R-2. One person did testify in opposition, saying all other splits in the area were required to have a two-acre minimum and this one should have too."

Thoele said the Effingham Plan Commission commissioners were concerned with setting a precedent if they approved the petition to allow the rezoning.

"They (Effingham Plan Commission) thought the two-acre minimum was appropriate for the area," he said.

A final decision will be made by the council at its next meeting.

A resolution was adopted by the council to accept a quote from Core and Main in the amount of $11.848 to lower the water main on Evergreen Avenue and Oceola Street. Council members adopted a resolution authorizing an agreement, at no cost to the city, with the SpyGlass Group, LLC for investigating overcharges made to the city by telecommunication companies.

During commissioners reports, Commissioner Hank Stephens recognized the public bodies and especially the Effingham County Board for supporting the amendment to the Enterprise Zone that would give residential property owners within the zone tax incentives to build new single-family and multi-family residential housing or improve current residential property. The city is optimistic about adding the residential Enterprise Zone tax incentive component to promote construction of more housing in an attempt to reduce a housing shortage in Effingham.

The Effingham County Board approved the residential Enterprise Zone tax incentives during their regular meeting Monday afternoon.

"We've been working on this Enterprise Zone for many, many months and I just want to express my appreciation to the many members of all of the boards, commissions and particularly the County Board who took a major step for this process that we've been working on," Stephens said. "I want to thank everyone. The staff and the alliance and numerous people in the community that have worked very hard to get the process to this point. I think this is a major step in the right direction."

Charles Mills can be reached at charles.mills@effinghamdailynews.com or by phone at 618-510-9226 or 217-347-7151 ext. 300126.