Commentary: A real picture of Briarcliff

BY DANI TIETZ
dani@mahometnews.com

How many times have you heard the saying, “I’m not a political person?”

When I hear someone speak those words, I imagine that they are saying, “I don’t want to be thrown into the pig pen with the wild boars who will bite your head off if you mention a topic they have a strong opinion on.”

The world may seem to be in literal chaos politically. We are hyper-aware, hyper-sensitive, hyper-opinionated people.

But something beautiful has happened in the little world of Mahomet this last week or two: those who might identify as conservative and those who might identify as liberal are coming together.

And let the record show, they agree on one thing: they don’t want the government intruding into their lives.

I live in the very eclectic neighborhood of Briarcliff, USA (as my once kindergarten son told his teacher when she asked him what his address was/is). It is a place where $90,000 homes are next to $300,000 homes; where doctors live next to single mothers, where you can see a campaign sign for a Republican before you see one for a Democrat in the next yard.

It’s quiet in our little slice of the world.

While the front part of Briarcliff was developed by Ramshaw in the late 1990s/early 2000’s and includes gutters and sidewalks, the back part is a chip-and-oil one-way road that people take walks on.

There are blind spots everywhere, but we know where to look when we are driving so that we don’t hit a dog or child who is waiting for the bus.

We pay our fair share of taxes to Champaign County, Mahomet Township, Cornbelt Fire Department, Mahomet Public Library, Mahomet-Seymour School District, Parkland College and the State of Illinois. Some of those monies even go back to the Village so that we “pay” for our Village road usage.

When our family moved into Briarcliff almost seven years ago, we didn’t use the lake because it was not maintained as it was in the decades before we came. I remember taking a walk through Lake of the Woods to the back end of that lake with my small children at the time. We were so excited that we could purchase a house in Briarcliff, but we wanted to see what the neighborhood was like first.

There is a path that leads back to that little neighborhood, but when we saw the signs that said the property was private and only for residents, we quickly turned away to respect their solitude.

I grew up on the outskirts of West Lafayette, IN. My parents owned three wooded acres on a 20-acre subdivision that only had four houses on it. As we made a decision where to raise our kids, I wanted to live on a farm and my husband wanted to live in a neighborhood. Briarcliff, a neighborhood with mature trees and a lake, was our compromise.

As my son got older, and our subdivision made the lake a priority, he enjoyed swimming in the water. I bought a kayak so that I could just take a bit of time away from everything and be near the trees.

Now, the Village wants to annex our neighborhood.

To the outside world, this will be sold as we need to pay our fair share of taxes to the local government, the Village of Mahomet.

The truth is that we do not want to be annexed into the Village. We are perfectly fine in our little world with the services that we receive from the entities that we pay to govern and represent us.

But, for those who don’t know, this annexation of Briarcliff means so much more than paying our “fair share.”

It has always been within the plan of development that Thornewood would back up to the north of Briarcliff. By a quick count, this extension will include about 100 new dwellings.

Where does the Village have the traffic for those new dwellings go to?

Will they go through the already developed part of Thornewood? Nope. Did the Village plan for a road to cut west from the new development to empty onto IL-47? Not a chance.

Instead, they will put a road between two homes that are fairly close in proximity and empty that traffic onto our one-way street that is built for the traffic of about 30-40 homes. Although we have not seen a traffic study from the Village, this could more than double the amount of cars in the Briarcliff neighborhood.

To make matters even more concerning, we have a one-way road. It’s a really, really beautiful road in the spring and fall. In the common area at the center of the road, we plant trees that have the most magnificent flowers and majestic leaves. It is one of the best places in Mahomet to view the change of seasons.

Traffic travels down each side of our common landscaping, then veers off down a loop that takes people to their homes.

Our fear is that when the Village places this road between the two homes to empty into our subdivision, the traffic will also be traveling down our one-way road. Or, will the Village turn the entire road into a two-way street?

Both options have problems for Briarcliff residents.

Let’s start with the obvious one: if the Village should build a two-way road, would we lose our common area with the trees? Would we lose property because they would come in and widen our streets to accommodate for the additional traffic or turn lanes? Would we be required to build sidewalks at our own cost? Would we lose private land to make public ways?

Then, there is the less obvious problem: If the road system does not change in Briarcliff, will those cars have to follow our rules and patterns to get to their destinations? We have a 20-mph speed limit, and like I said, there are many blind spots. If the current system stays the same, that will bring traffic all the way back through the loop of Briarcliff before the drivers can empty into the new Thornewood development.

Residents in Briarcliff also have another concern: we have private property pathways that lead to Lake of the Woods, and we have a lake that is for resident use only. The Village plans state that this lake is to become a detention basin. Not only do we lose our gathering place, a place where we host picnics and swim parties, but would we also lose our private access to a public area that we all enjoy?

As we closed on our house, a lawyer or banker, I can’t remember, told me the story of how Briarcliff was developed. There was this group of engineers who literally wanted to develop a private utopia for themselves. There was a group of about 12 of them, but only a handful built in the subdivision. They had their own water system, developed the roadways (which are fantastic, by the way), and built these beautifully unique homes.

And now, more than 60 years later, Briarcliff residents are asking for the same thing: a continued life in a private utopia.

While the 15-day period granted by the Village before annexation has been stressful, it has been nice to see people come together.

In a world where those who identify as liberal and those who identify as conservative may yell at each other over the internet, in Briarcliff, we have people from all walks of life and all viewpoints sitting at a kitchen table together into the late night trying to figure out how to preserve our common life together.

They have done research together, shed tears together, laughed together, got angry together, shared coffee together, made lists together, and tonight, they will get up and speak in front of the Village board together as they plead for their land and their life as they know it.

This world can be a very ugly place, especially when greed and pride are involved. But it can also be a beautiful place when we stop to look at each other in the face and see that we all just want the same thing: freedom to live our lives.