Proposes amendment that would give 49th Ward more control over affordable housing planning and development.
ROGERS PARK (Jan. 19) — Chris Adams, candidate for Alderman in the 49th Ward, called Friday for a 12-month moratorium on new condominium conversions in Rogers Park and announced he would create a 49th Ward Low Income Housing Trust Fund – the first of its kind in Chicago – as part of a strategy to stem the decline in affordable housing in the 49th ward.
During a meeting with the Lakeside Community Development Corporation, Adams said, when elected, he would create a blanket amendment to the city’s housing ordinance that would freeze conversions for one year and allow the community to take stock of its housing situation.
“This is a pivotal time in our community", Adams said. “We have more than 700 condominiums on the market in the 49th Ward with more conversions under way. As a community, we need to take a deep breath, evaluate where we are, and make serious plans about where we want to go.
“In the meantime, I challenge Ald. Joe Moore to hold public meetings on the Ward’s affordable housing situation and begin collecting meaningful feedback on the direction the community wants to take.”
Adams' plan also would require at least one affordable housing set-aside for developments that include six to nine units and a 10 percent affordable housing set-aside for developments of 10 units or more. Developers would be required to submit formal affordable housing set-aside agreements
The Trust Fund would follow provisions already in place in the housing ordinance. Developers opting out of set-asides in the 49th Ward would contribute to the Ward fund, rather than the citywide fund. The money provides rent and mortgage relief and new affordable housing construction for qualified applicants.
Condo conversions in Rogers Park have dislocated numerous families and driven other out of the community altogether, threatening the cultural and economic diversity on which the community prides itself.
Adams says Moore’s set-aside policies have been ineffective.
A report by the Lakeside Community Development Corporation linked the rapid increase in the number of new condominiums in Rogers Park to a sharp decline in rental units. According to the Lakeside report, Rogers Park has lost 3,600 rental units in just the last four years.
“The alderman has consistently presented the community with public promises of set-asides only to privately allow developers to choose less expensive alternatives, all to the detriment of the ward's affordable housing stock,” Adams said.
Adams said that under his plan developers would not be allowed to renege on set-aside agreements unless they showed actual financial distress and proof that they were pursuing all local, state and federal financing relief available to them and contributed to the Low Income Housing Trust Fund.
In its report, Lakeside Community Development Corporation recommended that the alderman use more aggressive down-zoning as a tool for community control of commercial and mixed use corridors in the ward. Adams said he would embrace the strategy and also use down-zoning to preserve lower density and the architectural integrity of neighborhoods.
“Change is an important part in the evolution of any community and there is a pressing need for our ward to evolve into a community that is better able to provide for the needs of its residents,” Adams said. “Retail, commercial and residential developments will be the driving factors in the evolution but the community has the right to oversee what’s happening and the alderman has the tools that can help.”
4 comments:
An ordinance prohibiting condo conversions is not the way to deal with 'stealth' condo conversions.
Instead of passing a law that is blatantly violative of property rights, why not ENFORCE the laws we have in place to protect renters in the event that the building is converted.
In the case of the Herlo Brothers developments on Greenleaf, for example, the developers showed complete disregard for the basic rights of renters, and for the laws that protect them, by starting on heavy work that rendered the apts. dangerous and unsanitary, and by not honoring the requirement to serve the proper 120 day notice, among other violations.
A landlord has a right to 'go out business' as a landlord. However, as long as he is still in the business of collecting rents, he is running a public accomodation,and has to honor the rules established for his particular type of accomodation.
So it is not violative of his property rights to establish rules that protect renters from being placed in uncopeable situations, but it definately is a violation of his rights to say: you cannot convert.
This is definately a situation where the market mechanism works best, IF the various authorities like the City, HUD, and FHA are not tilting the field by subsidizing developers to sit on overpriced, unsold condos by extending short-term construction loans, or by means of other subsidies to developers that shield the developer from risk.
For example, the market is dead, and the prices are starting to drop. Who will convert in this climate? Not my bldg owner, who said the climate is too unfavorable. Nor anyone else.
As for the Herlo Brothers, their mistreatment of their former tenants is coming back on them. I looked at their places on Greenleaf, that struck me as being obscenely overpriced and not terribly well-done and guess what? Two of the big 5 room 2 bed 2 bath units, that they featured at $250K, have been knocked down to $169K and $174K respectively. This is fun to watch. I'll see how long they sit there.
Trust me, many of these conversions will revert to rental, especially really small one bed and studio units that would never have been considered eligible for conversion in a normal market. Only in the bubble market created by the Bubble King Greenspan would trash like this be offered for sale.
So let's just enforce the laws we have, which are fair. If the laws had been enforced with spirit to begin with, Herlo Bros. tenants on Greenleaf wouldn't have been put through this kind of hell.
There is still a large inventory of fine, reasonably priced rentals in Rogers Park, and they aren't going to be converted any time soon.
At least now I know who I'm NOT voting for...
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Yeah, Billie, there's a reason they're so 'cheap'. They're still overpriced for the neighborhood, and construction loans notwithstanding, it baffles me that so many developers can sit on top of unsold units and still cling to asking prices people clearly dont want to pay unless they are schmucks. Could the govt, in the form of very generous construction financing through HUD and FHA, or through other city subsidies, be making the taxpayers support prices higher than the market?
That would appear to be the case. Now it looks like these turkeys have outrun thier construction loans and really need to move these trash rehabs, and are lowering the prices accordingly. I am seeing some substantial adjustments on the prices, and bizarre anamolies in the prices in new, rehabbed,and existing dwellings that presage a topping out just before a real dive.
This is gonna be interesting to watch, and lots of people who have watched in dismay as the prices spiraled out of their reach will be able to buy.
And the renters can rest assured that it isn't likely their rental will be converting any time soon.
Might as well add the CPAN set-asides are outright pandering, and extremely unfair.
Why does everyone insist upon CPAN set-asides? How is it "fair" to set aside an "affordable" unit in a building where the market-rate units cost $300K, and the 'set -asides' will cost perhaps $220-250K? The "affordable" units will still be unaffordable to the vast majority of buyers, who will still be footing the bill, because SOMEONE else will be paying for these set-asides.
What is righteous, or even fair, about making the developer, or other buyers, or the taxpayers, or anyone at all, subsidize spanking-new condos for buyers who are well-off enough buy, when they are obviously capable of housing themselves decently on their own incomes?
Why should the working poor who can scarcely afford the rent on a minimal rental AND who aren't deeply poor enough for subsidized rent, be forced, through their taxes, to subsidize people who make $40-80K a year to buy places that go way beyond minimum housing? Why should other people in the same or higher bracket,who are buying existing or other non-subsidized housing have to foot the bill for this?
The CPAN program is a way to pander to groups like RPCAN, that does nothing to make housing truly more affordable for everyone.
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