City to contact Bensenville residents searching for hardship sale candidates for O'Hare expansion program

In what some are describing as scare tactics, the city of Chicago has begun a mailing program to identify Bensenville (IL) homeowners who might want to sell their homes and land to the city before the FAA makes a decision on whether or not to allow expansion of O'Hare International Airport. The candidates the city wants to identify are those who needs to sell their property due to economic or medical hardship, according to the Chicago Daily Herald.

Opponents of the expansion, however, are saying that the mailing is just another attempt at using scare tactics to intimidate those property owners into selling before the FAA makes its decision. The FAA issued a statement this week that since it has no guidelines for hardship cases, it will use the guidelines that the Federal Highway Administration and California Department of Transportation use to decide who is qualified to be treated as a hardship situation.

Over 500 Bensenville property owners will receive letters next week from the city explaining what they need to do to qualify and giving them a phone number to call. Roderick Drew, spokesperson for Chicago's O'Hare Modernization Program, confirmed that the city is looking for people who want to sell now rather than wait for the FAA.

Residents are commenting, however, that hardship cases are not likely, because both Bensenville Village and Elk Grove Village must give advance consent prior to hardship sales and both communities strongly oppose any expansion at O'Hare. "This is an attempt, because they want to intimidate the town ... because the plan has fallen flat on its face," said Joe Karaganis, attorney for the Villages. "The hardships have been manufactured, if there are any hardships."

Drew answered by saying that the purpose of the letter is solely to inform. "We don't know who is going to call or who believes they will qualify as a hardship case," he said, adding the villages shouldn't stand in the way of people who need to sell now. It would be a shame in our estimation if they deny these people the ability to leave when they want to leave."

The City of Chicago, based on a court order issued July 10, 2003, agreed not to purchase any land in either of the Villages in question until the FAA decided whether or not to allow the expansion program at O'Hare to proceed. The court, however, granted an exemption in cases of hardship, and this is what the city is now trying to exploit.

FMI: www.faa.gov, www.suburban-ohare.org, http://modernization.ohare.com/