Tuesday, October 17, 2006

* 49th Ward Affordable Housing Plan

We know the cost of housing has gone through the roof - But this is crazy.

From the looks of things, it looks as if we have a new affordable development being build along the lakefront.

Our location is the three willow trees that are near Pratt Pier. They are taking on a drastic change as a ladder and construction materials have recently appeared. There's even a electrical power cord running to the trees from the lifeguard station.

Something seems odd here.

Haven't we heard this before. There is no sign of any work permits. No notice of a Lakefront Protection Ordinance violation. I wonder if the 'other guy' who is oh-so-concerned about 'pimping the lakefront' is doing anything about this latest development?

Or maybe this is Alderman Moore's new 'help the homeless' plan? If they live in a tree, they can't be called homeless, right? Either way, I don't think we had a community meeting on this. Did we?

Bonus coverage: Not Close-up - Jeff-O View

7 comments:

CommonSense said...

The whole affordable housing thing seems to be a bunch of b.s. A developer sells a place to a person for below market cost so it is "affordable," and then the buyer can seel it and realize the appreciation. Talk about hitting the jackpot. There are tons of affordable homes in the city. You can get a house in Englewood for less than $100k. Who wants to live in Englewood? Well, maybe if some people with a vested interest, such as homeowners, moved in there wouldn't be so much violence.
You want affordable housing? What do you suggest, a freeze on housing like in NYC or CA? We know both of those don't work.
Let the market do its job.

ChitownRog said...

I have a suggestion for making housing more "affordable"...

Stop giving people things.

Maybe if we (as a society) stop handing people something for nothing, they'll be more motivated to obtain the necessary skills to get a job that will able them to afford to buy a house. Why should a developer be made to sell a house/condo for below market value because some freeloader can't afford to pay what the rest of us are expected to pay? This kind of thinking only enables these people to continue their lifestyle.

Charlie Didrickson said...

Paradise,

While I mostly agree with the tone of you comment..........might you offer some statistics to back up this claim?

Thanks

"We pay outrageous prices and give 300% profits to condo developers, because they receive subsidies and tax breaks that enable them to sit on a whole development of overpriced, unsold condos for months and even years on end."

Specifically the 300% profits comment.

proGun said...

They look like deer stands to me any salt blocks around or is this another type of lookout. We saw something like this at a park in the neighborhood 7 or 8 years ago. Very bad people did very bad things in a tree house like this.

Pamela said...

RpSense -- please learn math. Every vote for ANY candidate is not a vote for Joe. Other(s)= +1 vote; Joe -1 vote. Every vote that Joe does not get is one less vote away from him getting 50%. All we need is for Joe to NOT get 50%. Here's a newsflash: even with the supposedly "split" vote in the last Aldermanic race, the candidates were not able COLLECTIVELY to keep Joe from getting 50%. Harrington got something like 1835 and Bradley got something like 1228. Joe got 3603, handily beating BOTH candidates by over 500 votes and thus taking 55% of the vote. Even if everyone who voted for Bradley had voted for Harrington (or the other way around), JOE STILL WOULD HAVE WON. He had over 50% of the vote.

I'll keep screaming it all the way to election day: Having multiple candidates does NOT split the vote. In fact, it's a very good thing because all we need to do is get to a run-off. It's almost impossible for an incumbant to keep their position in a run-off situation.

Jim Witts said...

pamela, I will keep saying that if ONE canidate can get momentum, that will help get people to not vote for Joe.

Instead of running 3 or 4 "Anybody but Joe" campaigns, but 1 campaign we would speak with a louder voice. By focusing our efforts on 1 canidate, we can get a single message across easier. Why wait for the runoff election? Why not be aggressive and take Joe down the first time?

Pamela said...

Jim -- Sorry, but you are wrong, and the math and our local election rules support my position. What we need is to get people to VOTE. Joe wins because he and his minions (such as DevCorp, RPCC, etc.) come out and get "their" votes out for him.

There are approx. 19k registered voters in RP yet only approx. 6600 voted in the last election.

The problem is not multiple candidates. The problem is RP residents not voting! 600 more VOTERS for either Harrington or Bradley would have led to a run off, which Joe would likely have lost (and I'll save the explanation for this for another day).

You cannot compare aldermanic elections to federal elections where the majority candidate wins. Our local game is played a different way, and it requires a completely different strategy. Joe knows this all too well which is why he keeps winning while everyone else screams about "just one candidate" (while, I might point out, losing -- the last election was not the first time Joe had competition).

If you really want to get rid of Joe, get out and VOTE and get all your friends and relatives to get out and VOTE (obviously, not for Joe). That is what Joe will be doing. One fights fire with fire, not with a squirt gun. Sorry, but the "one candidate" mantra is a squirt gun.

Folks, this is Chicago and Joe knows the game and plays it well. We need to get our head in the Chicago game; not in some bizarre national partisan strategy that is completely irrelevant here.

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