Board of Education of Richland School District No. 88A v. City of Crest Hill, 2021 IL 126444

In 2017 Crest Hill adopted ordinances creating the Weber Road Corridor TIF District that included three groups of parcels (A, B, C). A strip of land owned by Natural Gas Pipeline lying between parcels A and B was excluded from the TIF and from Crest Hill’s corporate limits.
The School Board sued, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief, arguing the TIF redevelopment project area failed the TIF Act’s contiguity requirement because the excluded utility-owned parcel physically separated the parcels.
Crest Hill moved for summary judgment, arguing contiguity existed by virtue of an annexation statute exception that treats territory separated only by a public utility right-of-way as contiguous (i.e., Crest Hill could "jump" the excluded strip).
The circuit court granted summary judgment to Crest Hill, finding sufficient physical contiguity; the appellate court reversed, holding the annexation exception does not apply to the TIF Act and the parcels were not contiguous.
The Illinois Supreme Court affirmed the appellate court: the contiguity test for TIFs uses the common-law annexation definition (touch or adjoin in a reasonably substantial physical sense), but the statutory annexation exception for public utility rights-of-way is limited to article 7 (annexation) and does not apply to the TIF Act in article 11.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether the annexation statute's public-utility-right-of-way exception can be used to satisfy the TIF Act’s requirement that redevelopment project parcels be contiguous	School Board: Contiguity requires parcels to touch/adjoin in a reasonably substantial physical sense; the article 7 exception is limited to annexation and cannot be imported into the TIF Act; Crest Hill may not exclude utility-owned land that physically separates parcels and then "jump" it to claim contiguity	Crest Hill: Both annexation and TIF provisions use the term "contiguous"; the annexation statute expressly allows treating territories separated by a public utility right-of-way as contiguous, so the same reasoning should permit contiguity for the TIF	The court held the annexation exception is limited to article 7; the TIF Act requires actual touching/adjoining in a reasonably substantial physical sense and does not incorporate the public-utility-right-of-way exception; parcels were not contiguous, so the TIF failed the statutory contiguity requirement

Western Nat'l Bank of Cicero v. Village of Kildeer, 19 Ill.2d 342 (Ill. 1960) (defines contiguity as tracts that touch or adjoin in a reasonably substantial physical sense)
In re Petition to Annex Certain Territory to Village of North Barrington, 144 Ill.2d 353 (Ill. 1991) (explains purpose of contiguity requirement in annexation and its application)
Henry County Bd. v. Village of Orion, 278 Ill. App. 3d 1058 (Ill. App. 1996) (applies annexation contiguity definition to TIF-context disputes)
Geisler v. City of Wood River, 383 Ill. App. 3d 828 (Ill. App. 2008) (TIF contiguity analysis using common-law annexation standard)
Pielet v. Pielet, 2012 IL 112064 (Ill. 2012) (summary-judgment cross-motions confirm only legal issues remain; review is de novo)
Gen. Motors Corp. v. Pappas, 242 Ill.2d 163 (Ill. 2011) (de novo review applies when case turns on law applied to undisputed facts)