Will County Executive Committee Backs Funding Pursuit for $2.33 Million Harris Drive Property Buyouts

Will County Board Executive Committee Meeting | May 14, 2026

Article Summary: The Will County Board Executive Committee on Thursday, May 14, 2026, agreed to pursue state and federal grant funding for a recommended property-buyout plan to address chronic flooding and septic backups along Harris Drive in unincorporated Plainfield Township, where Baxter & Woodman engineers concluded that acquiring up to nine homes for an estimated $2.33 million is the only modeled alternative that fully mitigates flooding at the most affected properties.

Harris Drive Stormwater Study Key Points:

• Baxter & Woodman’s study identified four alternatives ranging from a $1.7 million 30-inch storm sewer to a $3.28 million 48-inch storm sewer routed under Interstate 55 to the DuPage River, alongside the recommended $2.33 million targeted property buyout option.
• The county’s Stormwater Management Planning Committee has an annual budget of only $300,000, prompting the executive committee to seek outside grant funding through the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, FEMA and the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency.
• Grant application deadlines for FEMA’s Flood Mitigation Assistance program and Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program fall on June 26 and July 1, according to the Land Use Department.
• All nine impacted homeowners have indicated willingness to participate in a buyout, county officials said.

WILL COUNTY — The Will County Board Executive Committee on Thursday, May 14, 2026, voted to pursue state and federal grant funding to acquire nine flood-prone homes along Harris Drive in unincorporated Plainfield Township, where residents have endured frequent flooding and septic system backups that have at times rendered the houses uninhabitable. The motion, made by Dawn Bullock and seconded by Sherry Newquist, passed on a voice vote.

The action follows a Will County Stormwater Management Planning Committee study completed by Baxter & Woodman, Inc. that evaluated four engineering alternatives for the neighborhood located between the I-55 Northeast Frontage Road and Addleman Street. According to the study, multiple homes on both the north and south sides of Harris Drive flood after stormwater flows north from agricultural fields and then drains through a swale to retention basins in the adjoining Squire’s Mill subdivision. The segment is not connected to the City of Joliet’s water and sewer system, and many residents experience septic backups linked to high groundwater levels.

The engineers concluded that targeted property buyouts — designated as Alternative 4 — are the only option that completely mitigates flooding at the acquired homes. Acquiring nine properties at an average Will County tax assessor value of $259,000 each would cost up to $2.33 million. Smaller buyout configurations would cost roughly $1.59 million for six homes or $2.05 million for eight homes, the report states.

Sarah Coleman, chief subdivision engineer in the Land Use Department, told the committee that Alternative 4 was selected because the alternative engineered solutions either provided insufficient protection or proved prohibitively expensive. The first two alternatives — a $1.7 million 30-inch storm sewer in the Harris Drive right-of-way and a $2.86 million plan combining home buyouts with detention basins — are constrained by the downstream capacity of the Squire’s Mill retention basins, the study found. A $3.28 million third alternative would jack and bore a 48-inch storm sewer under I-55 to discharge directly to the DuPage River, but its effectiveness during major storms is limited by river stages at flood elevations.

The Funding Question

Daniel J. Butler, who represents District 3 alongside Newquist and chairs the Public Health and Safety Committee, told members the stormwater committee lacks the budget to fund the project on its own and has concluded the matter must come before the full board for additional funding consideration. “They got nine homes. They cannot use their bathrooms. They all have septic fields and none of them work,” Butler said.

Coleman said the county is preparing to apply for flood mitigation assistance through both the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, which operates a rolling acquisition-and-demolition program offering reimbursable funding of up to $1 million per community, and through FEMA’s Flood Mitigation Assistance and Hazard Mitigation Grant programs, which typically reimburse 75 percent of federal costs with a 25 percent local match. Deadlines for the BRIC and FMA programs are June 26 and July 1, respectively.

Newquist, who chairs the Finance Committee and represents District 3, said she shared the concern about the long process to acquire the homes — the IDNR pathway runs two to three years, FEMA programs run three to six years, and a similar Army Corps of Engineers project on the DuPage River is in its ninth year and still acquiring property — but said all nine Harris Drive homeowners are aware of the timeline and prefer the buyout. “What we’re looking for is just to say we’re going to apply for these grants, a series of grants, not just one or two, but a bunch of them so that we can come up with the money to mitigate the issue,” Newquist said.

Dissent Over Removing Homes From the Market

Jackie Traynere, who chairs the Public Works and Transportation Committee, expressed concern about removing homes from the available housing inventory. “We have a shortage of housing now,” Traynere said, suggesting one of the engineered alternatives might better serve the public over time. Oxley asked whether a detention pond on five acres of the upstream farmland could redirect runoff away from the homes; Coleman said a similar concept was studied in 2011 and came in at more than $3 million before property acquisition costs and would not have addressed flooding on the north side of Harris Drive.

The Baxter & Woodman study also identified the IEPA’s Water Pollution Control Loan Program and Section 319(h) Nonpoint Source Grants as possible funding routes if engineered ditch work and detention become the preferred path. The firm recommended that the county pursue Alternative 3 or Alternative 4 contingent on funding availability, and noted that even under Alternative 4, the installation of backflow preventers at the Squire’s Mill detention basin outfalls — at a cost of $30,000 to $50,000 — should still be considered.

The stormwater issue has been before the county for more than two decades, but Will County Board Speaker Joe VanDuyne noted the executive committee has only been formally engaged in the discussion in the past several months. The board’s next regular meeting is May 21, 2026.