Affordable housing is expensive. That’s one reason there isn’t more of it. One of the things that makes it expensive is community opposition. When a new planned development is being planned, the City of Evanston currently requires a stringent review process to ensure that the building will be safe and livable, will not cause harm, and will meet standards set forth in municipal plans and code. This process includes opportunity for community members to hear about and influence the development plans.
The process also provides opportunity for community members who don’t like a development to delay progress and demand additional steps such as repeated studies and hearings – even after a development has been approved. These tactics increase the cost of building housing and reduce the amount of affordable housing developers can afford to create.
Take the Emerson building under development by the Housing Authority of Cook County (HACC). This will be a new mixed-income residential building with 152 units, 51 of which will be affordable. Fifty-one units is a significant addition to the City of Evanston’s affordable housing stock.
The building is large and will change the way its immediate neighborhood looks. Some of the neighbors who live near the building site are very upset about this. They mounted a fierce fight when the city was considering the HACC’s proposal. However, the City Council unanimously approved the building anyway, and plans had been moving forward – until the last Plan Commission meeting.
After initial approval of a development, developers refine their designs and may need to get approval for changes. The HACC is in the process of requesting three such changes: two will reduce the size of the building, and one will reduce the amount of parking on-site (though the HACC is providing ample parking in other underused lots that are nearby). None of these changes alters the building in a negative way.
Evanston’s ordinances require many proposed changes to be subject to public input before approval, and the new 1st Ward Council member, who has opposed the HACC building, requested that the HACC conduct two public meetings where community members could provide input.
At these meetings, those who originally opposed the building took the opportunity to relaunch their attacks, with little focus on the changes that were the topic of the meeting. Although the opponents hoped to kill the project, the meetings were not a place where such action could be taken. So nothing came of these meetings – other than the HACC having to pay its attorney, developer, architect, and staff members to defend the project at two two-hour meetings. No constructive input regarding the requested changes was provided.
The most recent Plan Commission meeting on Oct. 13 took a different course. Opponents of the building again expressed their concerns, most of which had nothing to do with the changes under consideration. However, the opponents made use of the hearing process to request a continuation of the meeting – a postponement of the discussion and decision until a later date. Under the Plan Commission rules, the Commission had no choice but to grant the continuance, so yet another meeting has to be held, scheduled now for Oct. 27. The commissioners expressed frustration with the delay but had to agree to it. And, again, the HACC had its full team present to answer community concerns, and it will be doing the same for the next meeting.
The bottom line is that a very small but vocal minority of people who oppose the Emerson development and its 51 units of affordable housing are doing their best to hamstring the project. They are expanding the consideration of three relatively minor changes to an approved building into a full relitigation of the building’s proposed existence. And we anticipate that they will throw up as many roadblocks as possible during the remainder of the development process.
As an advocacy program, Joining Forces for Affordable Housing believes that the public should be given ample opportunity to voice their opinions and that decision-makers should listen to them. “Listening,” however, does not always mean “agreeing,” especially when there are different points of view.
Joining Forces asks those making decisions on the future of the Emerson building to focus on moving the project forward. We urge the city to minimize the creation of new hurdles based on old complaints and the use of delay tactics to stall progress. These tactics by opponents of the building are increasing the building’s costs, both for the developer and for the community as a whole.
Instead, let’s support this development by making its processes as efficient and affordable as possible. With this support, we can give the building the greatest possible chance to succeed in providing 51 new units of affordable housing to a community that desperately needs them.
Sue Loellbach
Director of Advocacy
Joining Forces for Affordable Housing,
a program of Connections for the Homeless
“Affordable” is a relative term, as we know. A developer can build affordable housing which is not made expensive by having to fight community opposition and go through various government regulations. The developer can make a dwelling unit affordable simply by the right choices in size and construction. He can price it on a cost-plus basis, instead of demand-pull (“charging what the traffic will bear”). This would seem to be especially feasible in a large multi-unit building with a wide range of unit sizes. A dwelling unit can be built to be affordable to households with lower incomes, to a point. I don’t know where that point is. But as long as the developer doesn’t ask government for special treatment, or get involved with special set-asides for affordability, it should be doable. I’m admittedly not familiar with Evanston’s regulations about these latter. I know that once you talk about “mixed-income” housing, that probably refers to some special regulations. I’m just talking about a mixed-price group of dwellings, the range of prices being determined by size and construction. You can put a mixed-price development on the market without setting any income restrictions even on the lowest-priced units. I see too many new multi-family buildings being built where the size range of dwelling units is narrow – and all are advertised as “luxury apartments.”
Sue Loellbach’s letter provides a clear and compelling explanation of how affordable housing projects get caught in delay after delay. I would add it would provide an excellent introduction to the field. Thank you for drawing out the points, noting the costs to the program if architects, planners, city officials, engineers, et.al have to attend repeated meetings. 51 units is an unheard of opportunity in this city. Evanston needs affordable housing. Full stop.
I agree that delaying tactics are fruitless and expensive. While we at Sherman Gardens are not pleased to have yet another high rise in the neighborhood, to say nothing about having to live through yet another construction project across the street, we are not (to my knowledge) the source of this latest effort.
Sherman Gardens is a sibling development to the co-op I live in in Chicago. There are about a dozen of these in the Chicago area. All were built to be affordable, but there have never been any income requirements, other than can the applicant afford the assessments. When these were built, there was no Section 8 program, etc.
I live right next to the Walchirk Apartments, in a market-rate condo.
I think an ancient and hoary question — with which our society is still grappling — is: Is it, or is it not, unseemly to desire to live in an area with only people of your own income-level? In the USA you can buy tobacco, or a gun, or works of art that others might consider obscene. But what about housing away from poor people? Can you buy that? Ought you to be able to? I wrestle with this question as a self-made person whose own parents were poor (due to bad choices) and who sometimes lived in “poor people housing.” I’m sure my perspective would be impacted if I lived in Evanston because I’d had wealthy, successful parents, and they bought me a house here, or something like that. I think another interesting question is: Are we importing public housing becuase we think it will be salutary for the residents. . . or because we think it will be salutary for us?
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2021/01/14/four-reasons-why-more-public-housing-isnt-the-solution-to-affordability-concerns/
Further
1. The area chosen already has two affordable housing options- The Walchik building and the building above Stacked and Folded which was supposed to have affordable housing, but, SURPRISE, is not affordable nor does it provide enough parking for all the residents–as does not the new proposal. Traffic and parking problems are at the max.
2. The plan turns suggests a narrow alley into which garages open can be a major thoroughfare
3. The residents of the current affordable building do not support this project, nor do the businesses on Noyes St. or the other residents.
This neighborhood supported the supposedly affordable rentals mentioned in 1 and was blindsided when it became just another unaffordable building. We have been good neighbors to the Walchik building even when HACC did not hear the pleas to place new utilities on the roof where they would not violate federal decibel level regulations. They have not been good stewards.
Come check out the plan. Why a 6 story building with only 51 affordable apartments and not enough parking that presents a brick wall to two other successful, moderate rental and condo buildings? The Noyes area residents have been good sports up to now –but it’s time for HACC to look for another location.