The woman who bought a Grand Boulevard home only to find herself living inches away from a construction site where a three-story apartment building is going up has filed suit in Cook County Circuit Court against the developer, her home’s former owners and the real estate agent and company who represented them.
The 17-count lawsuit filed by Brookfield resident Paulette Delcourt seeks more than $50,000 in damages from RMG Realty Group, the firm developing the mixed-use building at 3704-08 Grand Blvd., for creating a nuisance and damaging her property.
Delcourt has also asked a judge to halt construction in order ensure safe construction practices and to give a structural engineer access to the construction site assess the foundation.
Delcourt’s attorney, David Centracchio, filed the lawsuit in the Chancery Division of the circuit court on June 9. A petition seeking a temporary restraining order to halt construction was filed June 14 and is pending before Judge Alison C. Conlon.
In addition to construction creating a “private nuisance,” Delcourt also accuses construction workers of trespassing on her property and seeks both monetary damages for past incidents and an order preventing future ones.
The lawsuit accuses both RMG Realty Group and Modern Concrete Inc., the company that poured the development’s foundation, of negligence and seeks monetary relief for damage to her property at 3710 Grand Blvd., which she says resulted from work done by the contractor.
In addition the lawsuit accuses the former owners of 3710 Grand Blvd., Susan O’Connell and Robert Chicoine, and their real estate agent, Fred Tyler, as well as his employer, Cucci Realty, of fraudulent concealment and fraudulent misrepresentation.
The lawsuit alleges that both the previous owners and Tyler knew of RMG Realty Group’s development, which was approved by the Brookfield Village Board in December 2018, and failed to inform Delcourt of it when she bought the house in October 2019.
Tyler and Cucci Realty are also accused in the lawsuit of consumer fraud and breaching the Real Estate License Act. For the counts leveled against the previous owners and their real estate agent, Delcourt is seeking monetary damages in excess of $280,000.
Delcourt referred questions about the lawsuit to her attorney, Centracchio, who declined further comment.
The village of Brookfield, which has been vilified in multiple social media comment threads for allowing the construction of the building since Delcourt took to Facebook in May to draw attention to the situation, is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
In both the complaint itself and in multiple exhibits that are attached to it, Delcourt says that the problems started in August 2020 when RMG Realty Group demolished the one-story building that previously stood at 3704-08 Grand Blvd.
During demolition, the suit alleges, Delcourt could feel her home shake. Last September she used a seismometer to gather readings regarding how much the ground was vibrating.
Later, the lawsuit states, Delcourt noticed her gangway sidewalk separating from her home’s foundation, reported “severe” cracking to her patio and gangway concrete, damage to the concrete steps to her home’s basement, a stress crack in one window and bulging in a bedroom wall adjacent to the project site.
Delcourt also complains in the suit of construction debris falling onto her property, including a piece of PVC pipe that fell into her yard and a two-by-four board that fell onto her property, nearly striking someone.
On June 5, the lawsuit states, the sawdust was so severe that Delcourt required medical treatment at an urgent care facility for sawdust in her eye.
Unsure what overall impact the development is having on her home, Delcourt hired a structural engineer. She wants that engineer to have access to the construction site “to determine the depth and width of the excavation.”
Delcourt alleges in the suit that the development’s foundation is located partially on her property.
