Cortland has approved a 567-home subdivision despite the DeKalb school district’s perceived difficulty in accommodating new students.

The subdivision, proposed by RBR Properties, will be built on about 210 acres of land between Illinois Route 38 and Interstate 88, about a half mile east of Somonauk Road, said Kristy Fifelski, Cortland deputy clerk.

With the new homes come new students to DeKalb School District 428.

Walter Magdziarz, Cortland zoning director, said the subdivision is expected to bring about 400 additional students when it is completed. The district currently has 4,483 students.

Now that the subdivision has been approved, it is the school district’s job to find a place to put the students, said MeriAnn Besonen, assistant superintendent of business and finance.

“It’ll probably affect all of the schools [in the district]. Obviously the Cortland school will not be able to handle them all, so we’re going to have to overflow to other buildings. There’s going to be a domino effect,” Besonen said.

However, the school board does not need to panic about the subdivision, Besonen said.

“Supposedly it’s going to take six years to build the subdivision, so we’ve got some time to study it and decide what we’re going to do,” Besonen said.

Magdziarz said the subdivision could be completed in fewer than six years if housing demand is high.

“The developer had a construction time frame of one to seven years. For a project this big it’s pretty normal for the job to have a such a wide time frame,” Magdziarz said.

An 11.5 acre area for a possible elementary school was inserted into the final plan, Magdziarz said.

“There was some difficulty [getting the subdivision approved]. The school district had some demands. They said that a new school site would be desirable in that area and requested that it be put into the plan. It wasn’t in the original plan, but it was in the original annexation agreement,” Magdziarz said.

Cortland trustees passed the proposal with a 5-1 majority Aug. 23. Ken Edminster was the only trustee who objected.