Wilmette home’s hoop dreams are a go after Village debate

A local family’s hopes to keep their backyard basketball court in play were anything but a slam dunk after an advisory board ruled against it. But Wilmette trustees on Tuesday night found just enough reasoning to keep the games going.

The Village Board during its March 10 meeting heard a revised request for a special-use permit that would formally allow the retention of a backyard basketball court in the 1000 block of Elmwood Avenue. And after nearly an hour of discussion, trustees ruled the request inbounds.

Construction and installation of the court occurred in the summer of 2022, according to village documents. Prior to that, in April of the same year, the homeowners received a permit to allow the court.

Officials later determined that the version of the installed court turned out to be larger than permitted and included netting. Per a village memo from the village’s community development department, the size of the installed court, as well as the netting, required variations under the zoning regulations that were in place at the time.

But Wilmette officials in 2023 updated sport-court regulations, determining that courts with netting taller than 6 1/2 feet in residential districts require a special-use permit as opposed to just a variation.

The pitch in front of trustees Tuesday night called for a small reduction in the court. The netting currently surrounding it is 10 feet tall, village documents show, meaning it exceeds the zoning standards and created the need for the special-use.

The flooring of the court also required a variation because of its material.

Zoning commissioners heard the case in February of this year and voted 6-1 in opposition, arguing that the case did not pass the hardship factor required to grant such exceptions.

Ryan O’Donnell, the applicant for the request and owner of the home with the court, told trustees that the court being overbuilt occurred due to an oversight on his part during installation. He added that it was not his intention to have the court exceed the permitted size.

Trustees spent time debating several aspects of the case but focused in toward the end of the discussion on the required hardship needed for approval.

While some members noted they struggled to find a meaningful hardship, Village President Senta Plunkett believed the property’s garage and the layout of the lot were enough to meet the standard.

“I think on its merits, this warrants a variation because of the hardship of having the lot the way it’s sized and the garage,” she said.

There was also a suggestion to potentially table the case and return to reviewing the sports court regulations from 2023. But while recognizing some flaws of their approved ordinance from two years ago, the board opted to move forward with this approval while pledging to revisit the ordinance’s contents.

The homeowners will face a fine as a result of the overbuilt court but were not at any point issued a citation.

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