Oak Brook failed Friday in an attempt to have a judge dismiss litigation seeking to force it to accept an assisted-living project that would include some subsidized apartments.

In a preliminary legal skirmish, a DuPage County Circuit Court judge declined to throw out key elements of a lawsuit filed in October by the DuPage Forest Preserve District and the DuPage Housing Authority.

The lawsuit says that Oak Brook Village Board members acted unreasonably and unlawfully when they voted in August to reject a housing authority plan to turn the long-vacant St. Paschal Friary into a 93-unit assisted-living center for older adults.

The lawsuit also says the village's zoning regulations are invalid because they exclude multifamily housing.

Mark Daniel, a lawyer for Oak Brook, argued the lawsuit should be dismissed, in part because state statutes require housing authorities to comply with local zoning regulations.

But Judge Bonnie Wheaton said the housing authority and the Forest Preserve District have the same rights as a business or an individual to challenge a zoning decision.

"I find it somewhat disingenuous for Oak Brook to say that the housing authority and the Forest Preserve District have to submit to the zoning process, yet have no venue to contest an unfavorable result," said Wheaton, though her ruling also requires the housing authority to redraft a portion of the lawsuit.

The stone and red-brick friary, on the grounds of the 90-acre Mayslake Forest Preserve near Illinois Highway 83 and Oak Brook Road in Oak Brook, was built by the Franciscan order of priests and brothers in the 1950s and 1960s. The forest Preserve District purchased the property in 1993 but had little interest in using the building. In late 1999, the district reached a tentative agreement with the housing authority sell the friary and about 6 acres around it for $1.

The housing authority's plans call for a $15 million to $18 million project in which most of the assisted-living apartments would be rented at market rates, starting around #3,300 a month.

But 19 unites would be reserved for people with lower incomes.

In written arguments, Oak Brook's lawyers said the housing authority's proposal was at odds with village zoning regulations and its comprehensive plan.

Lawyers for the housing authority and the forest preserve district said the friary was used mostly as retirement housing for older priests and brothers before the Franciscans moved out in 1991.

While legal wrangling continues over the fate of the St. Paschal Friary at Mayslake Forest Preserve in Oak Brook, slow but steady headway is being made at the preserve's other vintage residence--the Peabody mansion.

Open to the public for tours on a limited basis since May, the Tudor Revival-style home has attracted as many as 80 people a week, most of them eager to view what Mayslake Peabody Estate supervisor Chrissie Howorth calls "a restoration in progress."

"People who came for the first tours saw damp plaster whenever it rained," Howorth said. "People who come now see a restored roof, and there's no water running down the walls. It is nice to be able to show the progress, because once people have seen the place, they are more emotionally invested in what we're doing."

Formally known as Mayslake Hall, the mansion built by coal mogul Francis Peabody remains unfurnished and still needs millions of dollars in work beyond the $3.6 million the DuPage County Forest Preserve District has spent to bring it up to code.

Projects scheduled for later this year include a pea-gravel turnaround drive in front of the mansion and better access off of 31st Street, Howorth said. Both improvements will be funded by a $1 million state grant.

The ongoing renovation has produced a few surprises, according to Howorth. "We found some original leaded glass windows in the solarium and breakfast porch that had been boarded over for years," she said. "We were told earlier that they had been sold, so it was a wonderful discovery."

Completed in 1922, shortly before Peabody died during a fox hunt on the grounds, the 39-room mansion was designed by noted architect Benjamin Harry Marshall and includes servants' quarters, marble fireplaces and a secret passageway.

Soon after Peabody's death, the family sold the estate to a Franciscan religious order that added a retreat wing and later built the nearby St. Paschal Friary. Voters approved a $17.5 million proposal in 1992 allowing the Forest Preserve District to buy the estate to save it from developers.

Not-for-profit groups hoped to renovate the mansion and friary and turn them into cultural centers, but none raised the necessary funds and the Forest Preserve District was forced to intervene in the late 1990s. In addition to providing more than $300,000 annually for operating costs at the Peabody Estate, the District currently is involved in a lawsuit that would allow the Forest Preserve and DuPage Housing Authority to turn the friary into an assisted-living facility over the objections of the Oak Brook Village Board.

"There are mixed feelings about what should happen with the friary, but everybody likes the idea of preserving the Peabody mansion," said Forest Preserve Commissioner Joe Cantore, who represents the district that includes Mayslake.

"It's a great resource and a pretty historical monument," Cantore said of Mayslake Hall, which was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994. "We just need to figure out how we will go about using it."

The Forest Preserve District is developing the Mayslake Foundation, a support group that would function as a fund-raising arm. A Peabody Estate volunteer program launched last May has about 40 participants, including nearly 20 docents who lead regularly scheduled tours on Wednesday and Saturdays and by appointment.

"Some of the women on our tour were surprised the house wasn't furnished, but there were no complaints," said Marcia Sammons, who booked a tour for members of the Village Associates of the Art Institute. "With the restoration just beginning, you get to see more of the architecture and bare bones."

In addition to tour fees of $5 per person, revenues are generated through rentals of the Portiuncula Chapel on the grounds and occasional rentals of the mansion for meetings.

Oak Brook has been accused of violating federal anti-discrimination laws in a new legal attack on the suburb's decision last summer to deny zoning for an assisted-living facility that would have included some subsidized apartments.

The allegations were made in a revised lawsuit filed in DuPage County Circuit Court by the DuPage Forest Preserve District and the DuPage Housing Authority. The housing authority is seeking to force Oak Brook to accept an ambitious plan to convert the long-vacant St. Paschal Friary, former home of a Roman Catholic religious order, into a 93-unit assisted-living center for older adults.

The original lawsuit, filed in October, alleged that Oak Brook Village Board members acted unreasonably and unlawfully when they voted to reject the housing authority's request for zoning approval.

The revised lawsuit, filed Friday, adds allegations that the village's decision violates federal fair housing law and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The imposing stone and red-brick friary, on the grounds of the 90-acre Mayslake Forest Preserve near Illinois Highway 83 and Oak Brook Road in Oak rook, was built by the Franciscan order of priests and brothers in the 1950s and 1960s.

The Forest Preserve District bought the property in 1993 to preserve it as open space but had little interest in using the building. Seeking to rid itself of the maintenance expense, the district reached a tentative agreement in late 1999 to sell the friary and about 6 acres to the housing authority for $1.

The housing authority's plans for what would be a $15 million to $18 million project call for renting most of the assisted-living apartments at market rates, starting around $3,300 a month.

But 19 units would be subsidized and reserved for people with lower incomes, which seems to spark opposition from some residents of affluent Oak Brook.

The suit says one of the housing authority's goals in rehabilitating the friary was to provide affordable housing for elderly people who could be considered disabled or handicapped under federal law. Oak Brook's decision to deny the zoning, the suit alleges, was based in part on animosity toward handicapped people in need of assistance.

Mark Daniel, a lawyer for Oak Brook, said he could not comment on the revised complaint because he had not seen it.

But he said it was unrealistic for the housing authority and the district to expect zoning relief that would not be available to private parties.

"They seem to have an expectation that the village should make zoning available to them on demand," Daniel said.