At first, from a distance, this looks like a advertising billboard for a single family home tear-down - to new cookie cutter condos. Everyone knows what these signs are for right? These signs tell you how much the units cost.... What the units have inside and who is selling the units. But THIS SIGN has none of that information.
Why was this sign here? A couple of nights ago a meeting was held at Paschen Park. The overflow crowd of 70 plus neighbors jammed in the small park district room like sardines in a tin can.
The Zoners, (that's their pen name) were there to tell Alderman Moore what they thought of all the single family homes that were being bought and torn down by his campaign contribution dealing developer pals. O.K. it was me, I threw in the campaign contributor pals. So instead of giving you a bunch of quotes and facts I will just share this sign.
The Sign says It All
This new Rogers Park tourist attraction sign can be viewed in the 1800 block of West Lunt Avenue. See for yourself, it's titled "The Shame of it All"!
19 comments:
> it also involves the future of some possibly older people
Ah, yes, the ever-popular "tear downs as social security program" rhetoric often used by apologists for real estate developers to justify the trashing of our nieghborhoods. "It's for the old people! How dare you interfere?" As if each of these tear-downs represents a "partnership" between a retiree and a developer. Under this scenario, neighbors concerned about the unique character of their neighborhood are robbing little old ladies of their nest egg. The scenario spun by real estate developers and their apologists, that the tear-down mania sweeping our residential neighborhoods is merely the manifestation of savvy seniors securing a comfortable retirement by selling to developers, is very Norman Rockwell. However, it does not bear up under the scrutiny of the facts. If you look into it, you will find that the only people ripping off sellers are the developers. Sure, the seller is paid for their building, but portraying these tear-downs as get-rich-quick schemes for our grandparents is a travesty.
What kind of monster wants to rob a little old lady of her hard-earned nest egg? Let's take a quick look at one of the older tear-downs in our neighborhood, and do a back-of-the-envelope analysis of a fully-sold tear-down for cinder block luxury condo project and see what we can learn about the economics of tear-downs
Single-family frame home, 1617 W Estes, original PIN 11-32-208-009, in an R4 district, overzoned, torn down for 9 cinder block luxury condos. The developers are a partnership between Aldermanic pal Richard Aronson, the Official Realtor of the 49th Ward, and Aldermnic pal Robert Coe, who is (very slowly, so slowly as to be almost unnoticable) building a new home for DevCorp North at Morse and Greenview. The developers purchased the home and lot for $260K on 5/30/01. The developers took out a $1.725M construction loan on 3/20/02.
Unit 1A PIN 11-31-208-034-1001 sold 3/21/2003 $370K
Unit 1B PIN 11-31-208-034-1004 sold 3/28/2003 $377K
Unit 1C PIN 11-31-208-034-1007 sold 6/06/2003 $380K
Unit 2A PIN 11-31-208-034-1002 sold 7/18/2003 $250K
Unit 2B PIN 11-31-208-034-1005 sold 6/27/2003 $315K
Unit 2C PIN 11-31-208-034-1008 sold 10/3/2003 $244K
Unit 3A PIN 11-31-208-034-1003 sold 5/29/2003 $315K
Unit 3B PIN 11-31-208-034-1006 sold 3/06/2003 $320K
Unit 3C PIN 11-31-208-034-1009 sold 9/04/2003 $315K
Source: Cook County Recorder of Deeds
The project grossed $2,886,000.00. After the purchase price, after the construction loan, this project netted nearly a cool million for the developers. Their original investment was leverage 11-to-1. Our granparents would do very well indeed to find such an investment instrument available to them in their golden years, but of course it is not. The first condo sold more than pays off the original owner. Of coruse, this is not a formal pro forma of the project; it is merely a back-of-the-envelope, broad-brush overview. But I believe the fundamental conclusion is sound: The developers make a LOT more money then the seller. Developers are getting rich, not our grandparents.
Tear-downs for concrete block luxury condo projects are very lucrative. The economics of tear-downs is compelling. The overzoning in Chicago so vigourously defended by our Alderman and our real estate developers and their apologists incentivizes tear-downs and block-busting. Overzoning is not a social security program, it is depressing property values in our neighborhoods, to the benefit of no one but developers.
For more information, see
Rogers Park Tear-Down Gallery
RT4 in Rogers Park: Slated for In-fill Development
The tear-down mania sweeping our neighborhood is not the invisible hand of some indomitable economic force, it is a choice we make as a community, as reflected in our zoning laws.
>How many people in this ward are honestly in a position to give away $100K to ensure the house they are leaving will not be torn down?
How many of our neighbors recognize that there are more important things in life than a few extra bucks? Lots, thankfully. You would not be asking this if you were at Paschen Park Tuesday night. For some, Rogers park is a real estate marketplace. For most of us, this is our neighborhood, our home.
Thanks for the pix, Craig!
To fully appreciate the situation there on W Lunt, look at the 1st (top) photo. Left to right:
new construction
sign
single-family frame home
Understand the developer intends to wedge a SECOND building identical to the first in that slot.
Just a FYI: There is a public notice (taped to a tree with miracle tape) on the odd side of the 1100 block of W Morse. Notice is of a proposed rezoning of the homes there from R4 to R2. Please, turn out and support.
Sorry you missed the meeting last Tuesday. I think you would have heard some answers to some of your questions and understand better. A collection of real estate speculators does not a nieghborhood make.
> ... there is nothing that takes the neighborhood down more than neglected, decrepit structures whose owners are clearly not equal to the demands of maintaining them.
You may not be fully recognizing how overzoning contributes to the lack of maintenance you decry. Overzoning creates the expectation of tear-down. Overzoning opens the door for block-busting: a developer snaggle-tooths a block of single-family homes and two-flats, throw up a 4-story cinder block monolith in the middle of the block. Mark the area for tear-down, put the neighbors on notice, this is the way we're going, this is the look of the future, it's economics, it's inevitable, you are powerless. Cinder block to my left, cinder block to my right, sun hasn't shown here in years, the garden and the lawn are long dead, what am I to do? Everyone else is doing it. Why fix the porch? Why new windows?
Right-zoning encourages maintenance and investment. A buyer is much more likely to purchase a single family frame home when they know that a 9 condo cinder block tower cannot be built on both sides. The landscaping you invest in will always have sun.
Hey Fish-face, the profanity aside, the REAL socialists in Rogers Park will no doubt be much amused to see me accused on a blog of being a socialista. If I have to tell you what you owe your neighbors, I probably can't explain it. Good luck to you, sir.
Pescado cried.......> "I've had countless lawm mowers stolen. A few of my kids bikes too. Lost two radios from my cars. Along with just a few smashed windows. .... Last year some rascally Sullivan students thought my back window was a target. 1200.00 later it was fixed. I have been robbed twice walking home at night'
Please be honest with the people you sell your house to. Tell them this information and put it in the marketing materials. See if you get $625,000 after that news.
> They were built for extremely affluent people
Rogers Park was never Kenilworth. You need to join the Historical Society and/or read their excellent photo books. Sure, there are a few genuine mansions, but most of the older, single-family homes were build for middle-class families. Of course these days "middle class home" doesn't mean what it used to.
jeff, did we talk about the "you guys" thing?
For some reason I can't post comments from work, which is okay because I am usually way too busy for that anyway. Today I wanted to- it really makes me mad when people get on the topic of selling to the highest bidder.
I simply don't agree with many of you about selling out. I understand people want to get the most money they can BUT I don't relate to that right now in my life. We own a 2-flat and we spend alot of our free time working on it. To think of spending years fixing a building up, living there my whole life (as I plan to) and then having a developer just tear it down? The thought makes me ill- just like I felt when I heard about 1225 Farwell. Fortunately that building has been saved.
I don't expect every building to be saved- that's not realistic. I think people are getting into petty nasty squabbles here when most people probably agree with each other.
Reading Pescado's comments, I guess some people think of their house as purely an investment -as a way to make money. Not as a work of art or of love. I know houses are of the material world but it's people who care for them and leave their traces in them. How about a sense of history-isn't that worth something?
The way I like to look at it (lofty as it may sound) is that at least I can leave some small legacy if my building makes it another generation. You know with all these teardowns, the well-maintained pristine older buildings will become even more special than they already are. That's what I'm hoping anyway.
In any case, I plan to live my life according to my values, which happen to include preserving architecture. Make any excuses or rationalizations you like not to do so. I still think it's selling on the cheap!
Toto sez:
The preservationistas like Hugh would like you to think that everything that is old must be saved. They believe zoning is the answer. However, zoning won't stop teardowns. Prime example is the teardown on a single home to build two homes. You can downzone all you want, but it won't save a crappy old house. Instead of getting six units of medium price housing you will get two very expensive homes?
Then that causes taxes to go up on everyone else causing more pressure to sell out. Oh, you say, downzone to R-2. That sounds good, except that R-2 is really a designation for an area of all single family homes. Two flats are not meant to have R-2 zoning. Much of the area in you want downzoned is a mix of single family, two flat and other medium sized buildings. Why should owners of larger properties be forced to carry the burden of the downzone?
Are you going to attract the people to purchase a $750,000 rehabbed house in Rogers Park
on blocks with four plus ones, when they can take that same money and buy in a neighborhood of all single family homes.
What do you do when you have a house in serious need of renovation? There are very few buyers who are willing to take on the house from hell. I've done it and I wish I hadn't. My house has a history, I'm fixing all the time. So you downzone these homes. And some developer comes in, give grandma a lowball price on her home that need repair, and guts the house and takes a $300,000 house up to the $750,000-1,000,000 price range. Is there a serious market for in those kind of homes in RP. Do you want the market in RP to reflect that kind of high value pressure? This might work if your area had the cache of Lakewood Balmoral, but hey, you're in Rogers Park.
And they think that by downzoning you can take away the spector of the multi-unit family buildings.
If someone has the money to buy an expensively rehabbed house, why would they buy it in Rogers Park?
You're better off letting people teardown the crappy old houses and start fresh.
And my buddy Hugh's not a communist. He's a facist.
On my way west on Lunt to the meeting at Paschen Park, I passed a couple of oversized (in my opinion) brand new single family houses for sale. They were not architecturally significant in any way. In fact, they were sort of cracker-boxish, with a hint of McMansion thrown in, although all the cinderblock was covered with face brick. How does this trend (which I personally think has potential for momentum up here) preserve the aesthetic value and character of RP more than a similarly sized muti-unit dwelling....I mean, aren't the kinds of people who can't afford to buy SFHs part of the "character" of this community too?
Have nothing against the efforts of the neighbors at the Paschen meeting, but I can't help wondering about this...
> zoning won't stop teardowns.
This is another rhetorical chestnut frequently dusted off by real estate develoeprs and their apologists.
Yes, zoning cannot completely eliminate tear-downs. Zoning is not landmarking. Yet zoning is our single most important tool as citizens to control development. Zoning is our neighborhoods' thermostat. We can turn the tear-down mania to a roiling boil or a slow simmer. We can bring our real estate developers to the table or we can turn them loose. We can step back turn our neighborhoods over to our real estate developers or we can get involved in planning for the future of our neighborhoods.
When we adjust the maximum allowable density through zoning, we are literally tuning the value of an existing building relative to the land it sits on.
Zoning to reducing density is the number one, single, quickest, most important, most effective tool available to us as citizens, more important than landmarking or anything else we could do, to cool the tear-down mania, to put residents and homeowners in the driver's seat instead of real estate developers and the politicians they sponsor, and to give us time to plan for thoughtful development in our neighborhods.
It's up to us.
> ... say [you] downzone to R-2. That sounds good, except that R-2 is really a designation for an area of all single family homes. Two flats are not meant to have R-2 zoning. Much of the area in you want downzoned is a mix of single family, two flat and other medium sized buildings.
The Excuse of Non-Conformity
This is a version of the ever-popular "we can't do more to preserve single-family homes because of non-conformance."
What is non-conformance? Why is the big deal? On Forum49 I have posted some exposition of these issues, as well as a detailed analysis of Ald. Moore's policies and pronouncements in this area. For more information, please see the thread "Moore Supports Tear-Downs."
Of particular interest to residents of the 49th ward is the post "Nonconforming Buildings in Moore's Proposed Remap" which describes a residential area which Moore proposes to downzone, which breaks his own rule on non-conformance. The area just happens to include property he owns.
Briefly, let me point out here the obvious observation that the apparent quandary described by the poster is very common in Chicago: many residential neighborhoods have a mix of single-family homes and two-flats. The residents in them seem happy enough. So why ISN'T there a zoning classification to reflect this configuration? Because our zoning laws were written by the powerful real estate developer industry lobby in Chicago and the elected officials they sponsor. The "box" we find ourselves in is a "box" devised by the developers.
Okay Hugh, point taken - I hope you won't cast me as an "apologist" simply for asking the question...I always do learn something from your erudition on this subject...
Tacy - thanks for pointing out the addresses of the SFHs on Lunt...I was driving in the dark at the time, and frankly I was starting to think I had hallucinated it...
I am not unsympathetic to those of you who wish to preserve the character you enjoy on your blocks - perhaps unmikely's suggestions are good ones. I agree that very long time residents are potentially exposed to extreme property tax hikes in markets like the one we've seen in the last 10 years or so, and that needs to be curtailed. No one who lives in a place for 40 years should have to move because their property taxes are going through the roof, and I'm sure for some it is a choice between doing needed maintenance and paying the tax bill...
After so many of these kinds of discussions lately, worthy as they are, I do wish we could see a similar expenditure of energy on some of the other housing issues in the ward, like where families of truly modest income can buy in without getting totally in over their heads...I've been to many of the variance meetings where various set asides were discussed and frankly the numbers don't add up for me - the pivot point meeting in particular...
I agree with Hugh that downzoning is the answer- that will get rid of the temptation to take the extra money and throw away a sense of history and character.
Yes, paradise things serve people, but you know what? Things outlast people too. Why waste resources? Is greed our ultimate value? A sense of history can come from place and enrich the community at large.
"If you care more about your 'values' than you do money, then ante up $100,000 out of your own wallet to make up the difference between what a home owner can get from someone who will tear the house down and someone who will keep it and rehab it. Then ante up more of YOUR money to help him with the restoration and utilitie bills."
**Sorry, even if I had the money(which I don't), I wouldn't waste it on someone who was just going to take the money and run-run-run with it. That argument is absurd and unreasonable- it basically says "if you don't have the money to save all the buildings, then shut up about it."
There is this concept called Planned Develeopment- I suggest googling it and you will see it exists. And preservation is a completely legitimate consideration.
Paradise-
I have no time to debate you - too busy. Good luck.
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