A neighborhood of more than 1,000 houses in DuPage County’s Village of Bensenville is being demolished to make room for an O’Hare International Airport expansion that some believe may never actually come to fruition. The demolition of several hundred acres of land has forced Bensenville residents out of the area, searching for the quality of life they’re used to somewhere else in the area.

The homes, sitting in an area occupied since 1850, were bought three years ago from reluctant owners by the city of Chicago, with the city looming over them, threatening eminent domain.

“What happened was the legislature passed laws condemning the property under eminent domain, so the people were basically forced to sell their properties,” said Les Park, a librarian at the Bensenville Community Library.  “Pressure was brought upon them by the city of Chicago.”

Fittingly, in an area Park called a “ghost town,” all that remains occupied in the space between O’Hare Airport and York Road is the Johannes Cemetery. The cemetery is still locked in a court battle to prevent the city from relocating it.

Demolition of the homes, which have stood vacant for about three years, began on March 24. According to Eve Rodriguez, a spokeswoman for the O’Hare Modernization Project, the demolition is slated for completion in September.

Many Bensenville residents were resistant to the city’s attempts to buy their property. Nine of them, along with the Village of Bensenville, filed a motion asking for a restraining order against Chicago to stop the city from forcing them to sell their homes. That motion was filed on June 19, 2008, and was the beginning of almost two years of legal battles. The court case was settled in November 2009, when village President Frank Soto decided the money spent on the case was not a good use of limited village funds and settled out of court with Chicago for $16 million.

“Today is a victory for the residents of the Village of Bensenville, and I want to thank Mayor Richard M. Daley and [Aviation] Commissioner Rosemarie S. Andolino for their efforts to cooperate with Bensenville and to understand our needs,” said Soto in a November 2009 press statement.

He did not, however, rescind the charges the village had levied against the city, including that Chicago deliberately lied to Bensenville residents, and that the ambitious phase two of the modernization plan was never going to be completed.  That phase, which includes building a new terminal, two new runways and extending another, is facing funding problems with airlines bristling at raised landing fees and taxes. The village also contended that the city had done a much bigger land-grab than necessary for the proposed construction in the

modernization project.

Chicago was given the authority to condemn the section of Bensenville east of York Road, south of Hillside and north of Green by the Illinois General Assembly in the O’Hare Modernization Act. That area was turned into “a virtual wasteland,” according to the complaint against the city, which the remaining residents were “forced to live in or give in to the demands of Chicago.” The complaint also claims the condemnation led to reduction in property values, a raise in taxes and a “lack of community.”

Park said the court fight was just another part in a 20-year “prolonged battle” between Bensenville and Chicago concerning the airport.

“Hundreds of property owners sold their homes to Chicago under threat of eminent domain in reliance on the truth of Chicago’s false statements,” the Bensenville complaint reads. “Selling their homes in response to these false statements …  left the neighborhood a deserted wasteland.”

According to Rodriguez, the city purchased 514 homes in the area, with the offers to homeowners based on appraisals of the homes.

Park said he could not comment on how much had been paid to the former residents, but it wasn’t enough.

“Bensenville is one of the few communities in DuPage County where there are reasonable housing prices,” Park said. “What we in the village offer is quality of life not really attainable at the price of our houses, so people were very reluctant to give that up.”