(70 ILCS 5/18) (from Ch. 15 1/2, par. 68.18)

Sec. 18. Acquisition, construction or improvement of airport - Notice - Bond issues - Disconnection and reconnection of land. After the site of any airport to be acquired, established or constructed by the Authority has been determined upon by the Board of Commissioners of an Authority, the Board shall cause notice to be published at least once in a daily or weekly newspaper having a general circulation within the Authority, stating the location of the site, and if there be no such newspaper, such notice shall be posted in 5 of the most public places within said Authority. No tax secured bonds shall be issued under the provisions of this act by any Authority to pay the cost of acquiring any such airport site or of establishing, constructing, developing, improving or extending an airport on any such site until 60 days after such publication or posting has been made. After the first issue of any such tax secured bonds by an Authority, no other or further notice need be published or posted in connection with and preliminary to making or financing of any improvement, enlargement or extension of any such public airport, its site, or the establishment or extension of its approaches, or clear zones or the installation or extension of any safety or other facility appurtenant to the airport. Any territory within the corporate limits of the Authority containing 20 or more acres, may be disconnected from such airport Authority, upon the filing of a petition in the Circuit Court, alleging (1) that the land is without the corporate limits of any municipality and is not laid out into lots or blocks or otherwise subdivided for urban development as residential, commercial or industrial property or used for commercial or industrial purposes, (2) that the land is not included within any airport or the site of any proposed airport and is not within an area over or on which an approach to an airport has been or is proposed to be established, (3) that the land is not within the provisions of, or affected by, or necessary for the enforcement of, any zoning or other lawful and reasonable regulation established by such Authority, (4) that it is not reasonably necessary for the Authority to have jurisdiction over such land for the protection of property within, and the inhabitants of, the remaining territory of the Authority from any hazard or nuisance resulting from the flight of aircraft, or for the prevention of accidents resulting from the flight of aircraft, and (5) that the disconnection of such land will not destroy the contiguity of the remaining territory within such airport authority.

The petition seeking disconnection of territory now within the corporate limits of any Authority which has heretofore been determined upon as the site of an airport and has caused notice to be published or posted, must be filed within one year after the effective date of this amendatory Act of 1963. Thereafter, any petition seeking disconnection of any other territory must be filed within one year after the date on which the notice of acquisition, establishment or construction of a site for an airport is published or posted, as provided for by this Section, by the Authority in which such territory is located. No regulation of the Authority shall be adopted for the sole purpose of enabling the Authority to retain any territory within its corporate limits by preventing, through such regulation, the disconnection of such territory as herein provided. The Authority from which disconnection is sought shall be made a defendant to such petition, and it or taxpayers residing in the Authority may appear and defend against the petition. If the court finds that the allegations of the petition are true, it shall order the specified land disconnected from the designated Authority, and shall attach to any such order of disconnection the condition that such land or any part thereof shall be reconnected and restored to such Authority by order of court, upon petition of the Authority and notice to be given as hereinafter provided, and after a public hearing, should any such condition thereafter cease to be the fact in respect to such land.

Owners of separate parcels of land which abut or adjoin may join in a single petition and any such parcels described in such petition may be considered as one parcel for the purpose of determining whether the area has 20 or more acres and of determining whether or not the disconnection of such land or any parcel thereof will destroy the contiguity of the remaining territory of the Authority. Separate petitions filed by owners of separate parcels of land which are contiguous with each other, or which considered together form one contiguous area of 20 or more acres may be considered to relate to one area and may be consolidated for hearing and heard together for the purpose of determining whether or not the disconnection of the entire area described in the several petitions will destroy the contiguity of the remaining territory of the Authority, and if such contiguity is not thereby destroyed, each petition shall be deemed to comply with the foregoing condition respecting the continuing contiguity of the remaining territory of the Authority.

At any time after the disconnection of any land from an Authority, such Authority may file a petition in the Circuit Court where such disconnection proceeding was had for the reconnection of such land. Contiguous tracts of land under separate ownership may be joined in a single proceeding. If it is found upon such reconnection proceeding that one or more of the conditions for the disconnection of such land no longer exist, such land shall be reconnected with the Authority, provided that no such reconnection proceeding shall attach noncontiguous area to the Authority or destroy the contiguity of the Authority as theretofore established.

Upon the filing of such a petition for reconnection, the Court shall set the petition for hearing not less than 30 nor more than 60 days after the filing thereof, and the Clerk of the Court shall cause notice to be published of the filing of such petition in a daily or weekly newspaper having a general circulation within the Authority describing the land or territory proposed for reconnection and, if there be no such newspaper, such notice shall be posted in 5 public places within the Authority, at least one of which shall be upon such land or territory or a public place upon land adjacent thereto. The first such notice shall be published, or such notice shall be posted, within 10 days of the filing of such petition and, if published, such publication shall be made on 3 successive weeks, such notice shall be addressed to Whom it May Concern, and shall give the date, time and place of the hearing on such petition. The petition shall allege facts upon the basis of which such land or territory should be reconnected as herein provided, and if the Court shall find, upon the hearing of such petition, that the facts alleged are sufficient to support the prayer of the petition and are true in respect to any land or territory described therein, the reconnection of such land or territory to the Authority shall be ordered forthwith by the Court and shall be effective as of the date of the filing of such petition.

An appeal from a final order in a disconnection or reconnection proceeding may be taken as in other civil cases. Within 90 days after the order in any such proceeding or proceedings shall become final, the change or changes thereby affected in the corporate limits of the Authority, if any, shall be set forth in a certificate signed by the Circuit Judge before whom such proceedings have transpired which shall be filed in such organization proceedings, and a certified copy of the same shall be filed in the office of the recorder of each county in which the Authority is situated.

Any lands disconnected from an Authority shall continue subject to taxes to pay the principal and interest of any bonds issued by the Authority prior to the filing of the petition for the disconnection of such lands from the Authority.

(Source: P.A. 83-358.)