Diverisified Holdings News

Company files bid for third Kendall landfill

By HEATHER GILLERS
Staff Writer Sun Times News Group

YORKVILLE May 23, 2007 - The Kendall County Board Tuesday received a third landfill application, a plan for a 284-acre facility at the northwest corner of White Willow and Ashley roads.

"We look forward to presenting the details to the County Board and to providing service," said Susan Johnson, an attorney for the landfill company, Lisbon Development LLC.

County Board members will decide this fall, after reviewing written and oral testimony, whether the plan meets state criteria concerning health, safety and welfare.

The board is already reviewing a separate application to locate a landfill across the street from the Lisbon site, and the Yorkville City Council is expected to vote Thursday on a plan for a facility on the city's southwest side.

While it is far from clear that all three plans will win approval, Lisbon Development spokesman Bill Utter said that "it is not uncommon for more than one landfill to be in an area."

Lisbon Development hopes to own and operate the facility beginning in 2009, Utter said. It would accept roughly a million tons of waste annually and do business for 32 years.

The company is made up of managers from Soave Enterprises, a Detroit-based holding company which has developed landfills in Michigan under a group of companies known as City Management Corporation.

Like the landfill planned nearby by Kendall Land and Cattle LLC and Houston-based Waste Management, the Lisbon Development facility would carry some guarantees for the county and its residents.

The county would reap roughly $4 million per year from either proposed facility. Homes within a mile and a half of the landfill would get free water in the event of contamination, and property owners within a mile would receive compensation for diminished land values. Trucks going to the landfill would travel north on Route 47 from Interstate 80, avoiding congested downtown Yorkville.

The Lisbon facility carries a few extra financial promises. Michigan businessman Anthony Soave, the principal shareholder in Lisbon Development's parent company, would submit to a yearly audit, and Lisbon's annual payments to the county would go up as revenue from the facility increased.

The company has not determined who would haul the waste, although this would likely come from the Chicago region.