Residents opposing construction at Ackerman Park scored a win Tuesday night when the Glen Ellyn Park District voted to abandon plans to build two soccer fields in the place of about 340 trees.

The change of heart came after Commissioner William Dallman forwarded a motion to back out of a joint agreement between the District and the village government. The agreement laid out construction of the two fields on 3 acres of the park. One of the fields would have doubled as a detention pond for stormwater runoff.

The District owns the land and had said it would like to have the additional playing fields, while village officials have said the detention pond would allow for additional growth in the Five Corners region. Work was scheduled to begin later this summer.

But after Tuesday's legislation, those construction plans will likely be altered or scrapped altogether — depending on how the village responds.

Specifically, the Park District voted Tuesday to revise the village and District's plans to "eliminate construction of the soccer fields." Because the intergovernmental agreement that calls for the stormwater facility is a binding agreement, the Park District could not just pull the plug on all construction without potentially breaching contract.

"We intend to accommodate the village's plans for the stormwater facility since we're contractually obligated to do so," said Park District Attorney Steve Adams.

The decision on Ackerman Park, it seems then, rests with the Village Board of Trustees, which meets next Monday, June 9.

It was not clear Tuesday night how village officials would react to the Park District's decision. At their next meeting trustees had been scheduled to review bids from construction companies for the project.

"We will have to have discussions with (the Park District)," Village President Vicky Hase said in a phone interview after the Park District's meeting. "Our board will have to look at it."

The stormwater facility construction project was in the works for more than five years, but it ran into an obstacle earlier this year after neighbors began speaking out against the cutting of the trees.

Despite making little progress for several weeks, the opposition continued to grow. Crowds of almost 100 turned out at village meetings, and an online petition garnered more than 1,400 signatures.

With those crowds protesting construction, Park District meetings had become unusually tense. Following Tuesday's vote, the atmosphere shifted notably as residents, who previously had pleaded and argued with the board, offered thanks and congratulations.

Park District Board President Bill Taylor noted that during the debate at previous meetings, a few residents had asserted that the board was acting secretively, unethically or even illegally. He called those insinuations "misguided."

"When the character of members of the Park District staff are attacked, it is not only misguided, but shameful," he said.

After the vote resident David Creech, a leader among the residents, offered an olive branch and said the discussion was never meant to get personal.

"I think everyone here respects the job the Park District staff and the board is doing," he said. "We always felt it's been about the issues."