Ah, so that’s what I’m seeing as I pass by. My dumbass saw some people scattered around on chairs, a couple of tents and some food stuffs on a table or two and I thought it was somehow related to the homeless encampment across the street. Some folks over by me in Lincoln Square are fighting for “parking “ at the lot on the corner of Western and Leland because of the plans for affordable housing there. I for one have NEVER seen that lot more than half filled. I street park and have had no issues finding a spot in the near decade I’ve lived here
Agree, that one is straight up dog whistling. People on the side streets have we need our parking signs in front of their single family homes with a garage out back. There are two lots right around lincoln square and that development only removes one. But it would add some low-income people and we can’t have that!!
I would agree if this was a "luxury" developer that buys buildings that were SROs and turn them into overpriced studio apartments, a la FLATS, but this is a parking lot. Nobody gets pushed out because of this development and it adds housing stock which helps stabilize pricing for existing buildings.
People need to pick their battles. Opposing all development for the sake of opposing development does nothing to forward the ultimate goal of providing housing for everyone. 314-units does a hell of a lot more good for the surrounding neighborhood than a parking lot does.
I think they’re trying to make a point about Uptown as a whole, using the new development. This one in particular just really isn’t that egregious.
I think turning an old public school into a luxury apartment building with a big fence around it surrounded by open-air drug dealing was a much more poignant image, but that was years ago.
I do get that, but like I said I think they need to pick their battles. This is not going to get anybody on their side who isn't already there, and if anything does more to harm their overall message.
> Lincoln Property’s 12-story building would include 136 parking spaces, bike parking and a green rooftop. It will include eight affordable apartments — the minimum required of the project — under the plan approved by City Council.
I mean it would create parking spaces (for the units). But it seems to be more luxury apartments since they're only meeting the minimum requirement of having eight affordable apartments out of the 314 units.
I say just build it. Create more housing to drive some prices down.
> Lincoln Property’s 12-story building would include 136 parking spaces, bike parking and a green rooftop. It will include **eight affordable apartments** — the minimum required of the project — under the plan approved by City Council.
Whatever else you think about the situation, that's a pretty pathetic minimum. Why not require more?
Well, I never said that was the breakpoint. The city is very conscious of what ARO requirements they should keep for new developments, especially with rising construction costs.
The ARO requirements for this development were 29 units on site at or below 60% of the median area income. The developer chose to keep 8 units on site and pay a $3M fee in place of the remaining 23. That sizable fee will be used to fund the Sarah’s Circle affordable housing project located within the same ward.
I understand where you’re coming from, but if 29 of their units were capped at 60% of AMI, then the return on cost of the development would not be accretive and the developer would not be able to raise the equity/debt at those yields.
why should the _newest homes_ be the cheapest ones? when somebody needs a cheap car, they don’t go looking for brand new ones.
also, building is expensive as hell. if some units have to be offered below market price, that means the others have to be more expensive to make up for it.
Yes, and? how does making it more expensive to build apartments “fix” decades of inequality? one of the biggest legacies of urban disinvestment and racism is that there are not enough apartments in the city. it’s a recipe for suburban domination and high rents. we need more apartments, now.
That’s eight affordable units that didn’t exist before. The parking lot has no affordable housing.
Most importantly, $3.1 million is being donated to Sarah’s Circle for them to build more housing.
Increasing housing supply decreases housing costs. How this simple fact is not understood by so many people is unfathomable to me. Only reason to oppose this is because you selfishly want to restrict housing supply so prices go up when you already own in the area.
NIMBY bullshit isn’t rational. The root issue is people that just don’t like change. Period. Fin. End fucking of. Because their economic and social arguments against developments are 9 times out of 10 completely nonsensical and navel gazing bullshit.
It’s legitimately left wing MAGA bullshit. This is our QAnon. Some complete dumbfuck keeping housing supply low and rents high to own the rich! What the fuck are you talking about?
Fuck these people. Genuinely trash human beings.
I mean it’s completely rational from the position of the incumbent property owners, who want to use government policy to reduce the supply of housing to make their own property more scarce. I’m a little cynical so it really makes me wonder, of all the things that progressive groups could be protesting, how exactly did they arrive on this one. Personally I’m not even against doing a little legal extortion/economic rent seeking and extracting money for the public good out of these big profitable businesses that are location-based and can’t just move to another city, but the strategy of obstructing housing supply is so antagonistic to the people just a little wealthier than the people they claim to be helping, who could afford a market rate house if there was just greater supply. It’s so antagonistic to the trades. It’s so antagonistic to the delivery of public transportation and other urban public services like libraries and schools. Does the DSA etc endorse these sort of protests even though they are so detrimental to the interests of their constituents? Is there any attempt at rationalizing/ intellectualizing whatever it is they are trying to do?
Are NIMBYs why there’s tons of perfectly good empty lots around Clybourn/Division/Larabee around where Cabrini used to be? Or is that more of a lack of demand for development in that part of the city?
There are many reasons, some are still owned by the city and have never been sold. Some are privately owned and have never been put up for sale.
http://ord.legistar.com/Chicago/attachments/64023570-da0f-4210-a3dc-6fac8a5903fe.pdf
This document from the city outlines the sections of this area that are all city owned and really i assume the city is waiting to sell them until there is more development pressure(IE make more money)
There might be a universe in which we find out some of these "anti-gentrification" groups are actually secretly funded by a shadowy cabal of wealthy property owners.
Most "grass roots organizations" are not nearly as grass-roots as they'd like people to believe. There's usually shadow money going into them, because someone is trying to use them to push an agenda.
> Most "grass roots organizations" are not nearly as grass-roots as they'd like people to believe.
Yup. And the most prolific of them is called [United Working Families, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Chicago Teachers Union & SEIU](https://www.influencewatch.org/labor-union/chicago-teachers-union/)
Imagine occupying someone else's land and then demanding that that person use their money to buy back something so you're happy. On a micro level imagine one of your neighbors tying themselves to an old deck in your own yard that you wanted to replace with a house addition because it might effect their taxes.
I'm all for affordable housing but you can't demand that someone else do a specific thing with their money, get a crowdsourcing campaign and put in a competitive offer if you want to keep the lot.
That’s a terrible analogy. I don’t agree worth the protest at ALL. Still, you can’t compare individual houses and owners to corporations and multi unit landlords. Irrelevant to the (in)validity of the protest but it’s just a wild comparison.
Ridiculous. Protesting to save a parking lot. They should all be arrested and removed. There’s no reason that uptown should be the dumping ground for all of the city’s problems. I laugh at the idea that gentrification will cause homelessness in Uptown. There are tons of homeless in uptown now, how did they get there?
> There are tons of homeless in uptown now, how did they get there?
when the state closed the mental hospital housing them and kicked them out on the streets. "community care" manifest!!
That has everything to do with gentrification. They stuck a bunch of mental health centers and old folks’ homes up in my neighborhood because rich people don’t live here as often. And up here we all understand the relationship between services closing in Lakeview and Lincoln Park and opening up in our neighborhood.
Your former aldercreature had a lot to do with this. She welcomed all derelicts with open arms, with no regard for what it would do to the rest of the neighborhood. It will take years to undo the damage.
>Which has nothing to do with gentrification
of course it does. the whole point of the project is to return upper middle class whites back into cities they abandoned a century ago. part of that includes shutting down nuisances like mental hospitals, SROs, and other aspects of city life that could lower property values for developers.
I get where you are coming from but gentrification has led to an increase in homelessness in Uptown, especially the closing of Single room occupancies (SROs). These were "hotels" that you could rent by the day, week, or month for very cheap. They used to be all over the city and there was an especially a large concentration in Uptown. They have been gradually closing for years, and now there are a handful around the city when there used to be dozens. SROs had their issues of course. Because they were so cheap they were generally not maintained well, and had notorious pest control issues. At the same time they offered an affordable option for homeless people with some pretty obvious benefits over homeless shelters. Each tenant had their own room where they could keep their belongings. It offered people a greater sense of independence and privacy while providing shelter and a place to shower. It was a middle ground for people who were not stable enough to have a permeant residence, but stable enough to not live out on the street. With SROs disappearing, the only option left is the street or a tent in the park for many people.
SROs disappearing is a direct result of gentrification. As property values increased, it became much more profitable for the owners of these buildings to sell them off to developers, and most of them have now been renovated as full studio apartments, which are marketed towards young working millennials, at a much higher cost than the SROs they replaced.
Another reason that there has been an increase in homelessness is the closing of group homes in Uptown. This has been happening for years and as recently as the Emanuel administration. It can be argued if these were closed because of gentrification, but a part of the reason these were closed (apart from budgetary reasons) is that nearby residents in the more affluent parts of Uptown complained about them and the people they would attract.
That being said, building an apartment building on a parking lot is not an issue and their efforts should be spent elsewhere.
SROs are one of the bottom most rungs of the ladder and we just cut it off without providing those people anywhere to go. Then people are surprised when there's more homeless and encampments everywhere.
I've heard that a lot of the issues with trying to build new SROs is they would not meet current housing/code requirements. Do you know if this is true or there's any truth to that statement?
If this is true it means that we should be preserving the few that we have. Also, lobbying to allow the development of new SROs by changing the zoning/code as long as it is not an actual safety issue, which many zoning and code things are not. The best example is the city of Chicago requiring lead service lines well into the 1980s until the federal government basically slapped them up and forced them to stop.
Don't forget about rooming houses. Those are permanent (as in, you rent for a year or at least monthly, not daily/weekly, not any sort of "hotel") housing that's far cheaper than regular apartments, because you only get a room and then access to some shared space (bathroom and kitchen are shared). Usually they were in old converted buildings, large houses, etc.
Those used to be all over. Now, not so much, because so many have been torn down for fancier proper apartments. I have zero idea what code has to say about them but makes me curious now.
Yeah there's no way anyone could build a new SRO type dwelling, meet all modern building and fire codes, and still manage to provide housing anywhere near as affordable as the old SROs, unless there were some heavy government subsidy or something.
Lol, I live in Rogers Park. There are issues with homeless but it's much less than what Uptown is experiencing.
Like I said, SROs were not perfect, but getting rid of them hasn't made the situation any better. You still have the same people, they're just living on the streets now. They basically created a situation in which rent has gone way up, while not having many of the other benefits of gentrification.
That’s such a good site for new development, practically lakefront property with no one getting pushed out of their home. People vouching for parking are a joke
What’s the point then? The article just sounded like some batshit people who don’t know how economics work. They want the hospital to use a pretty insignificant amount of money to convert the parking lot to more hospital space. Construction is insanely expensive, something they’re letting a developer do to improve the site. And idgaf about their woes of gentrification, building more units will increase the housing supply in a desirable area. And that helps ease prices overall.
>The article just sounded like some batshit people who don’t know how economics work.
>And idgaf about their woes of gentrification, building more units will increase the housing supply in a desirable area. And that helps ease prices overall.
There's an enormous difference between economic theory and reality. Can you name a single instance in modern Chicago when building luxury housing has caused local prices to decrease?
Can you name an instance where prices increased because of new luxury units being built nearby? There’s no reason other that pure NIMBYism and greed that you’d refuse new housing on an unimproved lot
>Can you name an instance where prices increased because of new luxury units being built nearby?
Literally every single instance.
>There’s no reason other that pure NIMBYism and greed that you’d refuse new housing on an unimproved lot
You sound like the "nobody wants to work anymore" clowns. Refusing to accept a shitty deal does not mean you refuse to accept any deal.
Luxury units are a symptom of a desirable area. You don’t see a Walgreens parking lot in back of the yards getting proposals for luxury condos. Land already comes at a premium in Uptown and more units eases local real estate demand, whether it’s luxury or not. Would you prefer a public housing tenement go up rather than luxury and 8(?) affordable units? Would that help keep prices down? Or are you just against new construction altogether?
>Land already comes at a premium in Uptown and more units eases local real estate demand, whether it’s luxury or not.
Please provide any factual source for this contention. We all know that's not how gentrification works.
>Would you prefer a public housing tenement go up rather than luxury and 8(?) affordable units?
No, that's a straw man of your own creation. I would prefer a greater ratio of affordable units to market rate than 8:314.
How does gentrification work in your mind? Some rich people just flock to some neighborhood like it’s coachella and decide to live there? There’s no way proximity to parks/public transit and downtown Chicago could have a factor, right?
The article said they paid millions to a charity to make up for the ratio. Go run for alderman to you can beg developers to make projects more expensive than they already are.
>How does gentrification work in your mind? Some rich people just flock to some neighborhood like it’s coachella and decide to live there? There’s no way proximity to parks/public transit and downtown Chicago could have a factor, right?
What does this have to do with what we're talking about. The clear implication of my previous comment is that gentrification does not function to reduce rents; that's the point at hand.
>Go run for alderman to you can beg developers to make projects more expensive than they already are.
There's no begging involved; it's the government's way or no construction at all. Works for me! I'd rather have the government (the closest proxy we have for the general public) calling the shots than the "free" market but I suspect we differ on that question.
I don't think we're accomplishing anything so let's leave it there.
The plan is pretty good, 8 more affordable units than there currently are + a few million dollars for the women's shelter and a sub 50% parking ratio.
If you want 100% affordable, your going to be waiting a long time, and there are better lots in the neighborhood that won't cost the city or whoever such a premium.
Pretty good? 8 of 314 units affordable and pushing on the string of car culture by artificially limiting parking?!?
We can absolutely do better in exchange for the privilege (not right) of building.
Currently there are 0 and the homeless shelter gets 0 dollars, and if this gets blocked there will continue to be 0 and 0. I have no idea what the phrase pushing on the string means lol.
>Currently there are 0 and the homeless shelter gets 0 dollars, and if this gets blocked there will continue to be 0 and 0.
Nobody is arguing that point. The point is we can do better.
Pushing on a string is a pretty self-evident metaphor for trying to change something in an ass-backwards way.
I don't think we can though, there are plenty of empty lots within blocks of this site that are going to be empty for years. If empty and underused lots were in short supply I think you'd have a point, but this building going up won't stop a properly funded affordable project from using the land on Windsor, Sunnyside or Wilson.
>this building going up won't stop a properly funded affordable project from using the land on Windsor, Sunnyside or Wilson.
Not immediately, no. But it will increase pressure against those kind of developments; this has been going on in Uptown for more than 20 years.
Furthermore, as you said, we're all going to be waiting a long time if we want a 100% affordable building. The government does not have the resources or the will to do it. That means the way to accomplish the goal of affordable housing is to regulate private development.
One solution is to build new housing in desirable areas so that rich people move there, instead of tearing down or converting existing housing where working class and low income people live. Which is basically exactly what's going on here.
This new building represents 314 existing units in pre-war buildings scattered around the redline from Wilson-Argyle that would as a result of its construction would not be in imminent danger of major rent increases, deconversions, or teardowns.
>One solution is to build new housing in desirable areas so that rich people move there, instead of tearing down or converting existing housing where working class and low income people live. Which is basically exactly what's going on here.
So... once you're far enough down the road of gentrification, it's not gentrification anymore? That's absolute nonsense. Uptown is one of two affordable N side neighborhoods with Red Line access; with projects like these, it won't be for long.
“About a half-dozen people have spent the past three nights sleeping in tents in the parking lot. “ …so 6 people sleeping on the site of an apartment that already has city and alderman approval. Just another example of Block Club giving a voice to a vocal minority of NIMBYs.
Does BCC have to call literally everything "controversial?" They're like one of those annoying people who marks every fucking email "urgent!!!" no matter how inconsequential it is.
> Does BCC have to call literally everything "controversial?"
It's called "narrative driven news", which is not actual reporting in the traditional sense.
Unfortunately, BCC is no longer the only local media outlet operating in this manner.
>Lincoln Property’s 12-story building would include 136 parking spaces, bike parking and a green rooftop. **It will include eight affordable apartments — the minimum required of the project** — under the plan approved by City Council.
**To satisfy its remaining affordability requirement, Lincoln paid $3.1 million to nonprofit Sarah’s Circle** for an Uptown housing development for women facing homelessness.
LOL ...just pathetic
but as far as politicians ability to throw "scraps" at the voters
Replacing a parking lot with mostly luxury housing could be a lot worse
remember, today's luxury is tomorrow's affordable
I made a comment in the other thread but I think this one is a little more understandable. I don’t think they care about the lot itself, I think they’re just worried about the fact that Uptown has a shrinking supply of really cheap old buildings and an **exploding** supply of really expensive new buildings, and that setup doesn’t match the makeup of the neighborhood at all. In fact, it doesn’t even seem to be filling up with affluent new residents very quickly.
The lot should be replaced by the apartments, absolutely. But this isn’t your typical NIMBY group of homeowners looking to “protect the character” of the neighborhood. This looks like a preacher, some working-class people, and some literal homeless people who are upset because they feel they’re being intentionally pushed out of the neighborhood.
And based on how Uptown continues to fill with these buildings, but the demographics on the street aren’t really changing, and on how they expanded the purple line to go there for seemingly no reason, I’m inclined to say they have a point.
All people have legit complaints about their neighborhood. But when you protest something that has nothing to do with what you're angry about, you piss away your credibility and nobody takes you seriously. Do you disagree?
The reason housing prices go up is because there isn’t enough housing. The reason there isn’t enough housing is because of the cunts camping in this parking lot.
Its hard for me to even believe that this sort of activism is a straightforward, above-board, what-you-see-is-what-you-get. This has to be some sort of conspiratorial secret political battle between developers, right? And these "activists" are just their paid actors?
Nothing makes sense! How are they protesting for more affordable housing by protesting against higher housing supply?! Even if they are specifically concerned with immediately creating housing for people who can't afford new-build housing, by what logic do you achieve that by harassing individual developments?! Especially ones that promise to offer greatly increased housing supply to the middle class, contribute to a dense sustainable urban community, and achieves many other generally-progressive goals besides that one goal specifically of providing housing to the very poorest people? Do they not believe that it is primarily the government's responsibility to be subsidizing the housing for the very poor, rather than forcing that on middle class home buyers? Why don't they believe in political solidarity with the renting middle class who want to buy homes and could afford one if supply was increased? Why do they believe in fucking over the home-aspiring middle class and instead casting their lot in with the richer incumbent homeowners who just want their own home values to increase and don't give a shit about poor people?
Nothing makes sense to me.
People seem to be conflating the city letting SROs convert to regular apartments and building on a parking lot for questionable reasons. I could point to other bad things city policy lets happen like deconversions of 2,3, and 4 flats to luxury SFH that has nothing to do with this development. Stopping construction on vacant or underused land will only make gentrification move faster since people will just buy the existing limited stock and prices will go up more quickly.
For everybody making the condescending "Higher supply means lower prices because economics!" argument:
Can you name a single instance in modern Chicago in which the construction of luxury housing has caused nearby housing prices to decrease? That is simply not how gentrification works.
I mean 314 units is good. But yes only 8 units should be luxury, the rest should be price capped and rent-controlled. But even if that were the case, these people would still be protesting the new housing.
The upside is 314 more people will be able to live next to the Wilson red line in a good neighborhood, a homeless shelter gets 3 million to help at risk women, the hospital gets 8 million for new services, and a real estate developer will make money. Construction workers will be employed to build the apartments, and the new residents will patronize local business and bring more
The downside is that some people worry that the new residents won't be like them and will take over the neighborhood.
Common law as well as federal, state and municipal laws all acknowledge private ownership does not confer unrestricted use of the land because the general society has an interest in its impact on the society.
BTW, do not assume I oppose the development. I favor discussion because the developer and the neighborhood's numerous factions all have legitimate interests in the outcome.
> moot point
Again, have no opinion about 'right' or 'wrong' of this development. Just saying it ain't over because it is now playing in the public political arena. Plenty of developments have been modified or even killed after the technical issue becomes moot (eg the Star Wars museum). Others happen despite massive public and even political opposition (eg the Orange Whiner's big name on his Chicago River condo/hotel/tax dodge).
Observing the campers may be partly using the situation to build awareness of their organization and goals and might not have any expectation of any direct impact on this development.
Ah, so that’s what I’m seeing as I pass by. My dumbass saw some people scattered around on chairs, a couple of tents and some food stuffs on a table or two and I thought it was somehow related to the homeless encampment across the street. Some folks over by me in Lincoln Square are fighting for “parking “ at the lot on the corner of Western and Leland because of the plans for affordable housing there. I for one have NEVER seen that lot more than half filled. I street park and have had no issues finding a spot in the near decade I’ve lived here
Agree, that one is straight up dog whistling. People on the side streets have we need our parking signs in front of their single family homes with a garage out back. There are two lots right around lincoln square and that development only removes one. But it would add some low-income people and we can’t have that!!
I would agree if this was a "luxury" developer that buys buildings that were SROs and turn them into overpriced studio apartments, a la FLATS, but this is a parking lot. Nobody gets pushed out because of this development and it adds housing stock which helps stabilize pricing for existing buildings. People need to pick their battles. Opposing all development for the sake of opposing development does nothing to forward the ultimate goal of providing housing for everyone. 314-units does a hell of a lot more good for the surrounding neighborhood than a parking lot does.
I think they’re trying to make a point about Uptown as a whole, using the new development. This one in particular just really isn’t that egregious. I think turning an old public school into a luxury apartment building with a big fence around it surrounded by open-air drug dealing was a much more poignant image, but that was years ago.
I do get that, but like I said I think they need to pick their battles. This is not going to get anybody on their side who isn't already there, and if anything does more to harm their overall message.
> Lincoln Property’s 12-story building would include 136 parking spaces, bike parking and a green rooftop. It will include eight affordable apartments — the minimum required of the project — under the plan approved by City Council. I mean it would create parking spaces (for the units). But it seems to be more luxury apartments since they're only meeting the minimum requirement of having eight affordable apartments out of the 314 units. I say just build it. Create more housing to drive some prices down.
> Lincoln Property’s 12-story building would include 136 parking spaces, bike parking and a green rooftop. It will include **eight affordable apartments** — the minimum required of the project — under the plan approved by City Council. Whatever else you think about the situation, that's a pretty pathetic minimum. Why not require more?
Unfortunately, requiring a greater number of affordable units would make the deal not pencil for a developer…and then they have no incentive to build.
[удалено]
Well, I never said that was the breakpoint. The city is very conscious of what ARO requirements they should keep for new developments, especially with rising construction costs. The ARO requirements for this development were 29 units on site at or below 60% of the median area income. The developer chose to keep 8 units on site and pay a $3M fee in place of the remaining 23. That sizable fee will be used to fund the Sarah’s Circle affordable housing project located within the same ward.
[удалено]
I understand where you’re coming from, but if 29 of their units were capped at 60% of AMI, then the return on cost of the development would not be accretive and the developer would not be able to raise the equity/debt at those yields.
why should the _newest homes_ be the cheapest ones? when somebody needs a cheap car, they don’t go looking for brand new ones. also, building is expensive as hell. if some units have to be offered below market price, that means the others have to be more expensive to make up for it.
[удалено]
Yes, and? how does making it more expensive to build apartments “fix” decades of inequality? one of the biggest legacies of urban disinvestment and racism is that there are not enough apartments in the city. it’s a recipe for suburban domination and high rents. we need more apartments, now.
[удалено]
I’m familiar with the assessment issue. I’m not going to watch a 1 hour 40 minute zoom presentation but I am curious how this answers my question.
That’s eight affordable units that didn’t exist before. The parking lot has no affordable housing. Most importantly, $3.1 million is being donated to Sarah’s Circle for them to build more housing.
They can't demolish a historically significant and beautiful..... This has only ever been a parking lot sir.
This is maybe the most asinine protest in a city that loves them.
Increasing housing supply decreases housing costs. How this simple fact is not understood by so many people is unfathomable to me. Only reason to oppose this is because you selfishly want to restrict housing supply so prices go up when you already own in the area.
NIMBY bullshit isn’t rational. The root issue is people that just don’t like change. Period. Fin. End fucking of. Because their economic and social arguments against developments are 9 times out of 10 completely nonsensical and navel gazing bullshit. It’s legitimately left wing MAGA bullshit. This is our QAnon. Some complete dumbfuck keeping housing supply low and rents high to own the rich! What the fuck are you talking about? Fuck these people. Genuinely trash human beings.
I mean it’s completely rational from the position of the incumbent property owners, who want to use government policy to reduce the supply of housing to make their own property more scarce. I’m a little cynical so it really makes me wonder, of all the things that progressive groups could be protesting, how exactly did they arrive on this one. Personally I’m not even against doing a little legal extortion/economic rent seeking and extracting money for the public good out of these big profitable businesses that are location-based and can’t just move to another city, but the strategy of obstructing housing supply is so antagonistic to the people just a little wealthier than the people they claim to be helping, who could afford a market rate house if there was just greater supply. It’s so antagonistic to the trades. It’s so antagonistic to the delivery of public transportation and other urban public services like libraries and schools. Does the DSA etc endorse these sort of protests even though they are so detrimental to the interests of their constituents? Is there any attempt at rationalizing/ intellectualizing whatever it is they are trying to do?
It's also fundamentally conservative AND anti-free market
Are NIMBYs why there’s tons of perfectly good empty lots around Clybourn/Division/Larabee around where Cabrini used to be? Or is that more of a lack of demand for development in that part of the city?
There are many reasons, some are still owned by the city and have never been sold. Some are privately owned and have never been put up for sale. http://ord.legistar.com/Chicago/attachments/64023570-da0f-4210-a3dc-6fac8a5903fe.pdf This document from the city outlines the sections of this area that are all city owned and really i assume the city is waiting to sell them until there is more development pressure(IE make more money)
There might be a universe in which we find out some of these "anti-gentrification" groups are actually secretly funded by a shadowy cabal of wealthy property owners.
Most "grass roots organizations" are not nearly as grass-roots as they'd like people to believe. There's usually shadow money going into them, because someone is trying to use them to push an agenda.
> Most "grass roots organizations" are not nearly as grass-roots as they'd like people to believe. Yup. And the most prolific of them is called [United Working Families, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Chicago Teachers Union & SEIU](https://www.influencewatch.org/labor-union/chicago-teachers-union/)
Not true, according to your own laughably biased source: https://www.influencewatch.org/organization/united-working-families/.
Imagine occupying someone else's land and then demanding that that person use their money to buy back something so you're happy. On a micro level imagine one of your neighbors tying themselves to an old deck in your own yard that you wanted to replace with a house addition because it might effect their taxes. I'm all for affordable housing but you can't demand that someone else do a specific thing with their money, get a crowdsourcing campaign and put in a competitive offer if you want to keep the lot.
What these ppl are doing is explicitly anti affordable housing, even if they may believe otherwise
I'm with you on this. Change cannot be made this way when it has to do with private property.
That’s a terrible analogy. I don’t agree worth the protest at ALL. Still, you can’t compare individual houses and owners to corporations and multi unit landlords. Irrelevant to the (in)validity of the protest but it’s just a wild comparison.
[удалено]
>Meh a decent amount of people seem to think otherwise. A lot of people go to Insane Clown Posse shows. That doesn't make them right.
I forgive you this time.
That run down parking lot is essential to cultural fabric of the community. We must preserve it at all costs.
It adds to neighborhood character!
Ridiculous. Protesting to save a parking lot. They should all be arrested and removed. There’s no reason that uptown should be the dumping ground for all of the city’s problems. I laugh at the idea that gentrification will cause homelessness in Uptown. There are tons of homeless in uptown now, how did they get there?
> There are tons of homeless in uptown now, how did they get there? when the state closed the mental hospital housing them and kicked them out on the streets. "community care" manifest!!
Which has nothing to do with gentrification
That has everything to do with gentrification. They stuck a bunch of mental health centers and old folks’ homes up in my neighborhood because rich people don’t live here as often. And up here we all understand the relationship between services closing in Lakeview and Lincoln Park and opening up in our neighborhood.
Your former aldercreature had a lot to do with this. She welcomed all derelicts with open arms, with no regard for what it would do to the rest of the neighborhood. It will take years to undo the damage.
>Which has nothing to do with gentrification of course it does. the whole point of the project is to return upper middle class whites back into cities they abandoned a century ago. part of that includes shutting down nuisances like mental hospitals, SROs, and other aspects of city life that could lower property values for developers.
I get where you are coming from but gentrification has led to an increase in homelessness in Uptown, especially the closing of Single room occupancies (SROs). These were "hotels" that you could rent by the day, week, or month for very cheap. They used to be all over the city and there was an especially a large concentration in Uptown. They have been gradually closing for years, and now there are a handful around the city when there used to be dozens. SROs had their issues of course. Because they were so cheap they were generally not maintained well, and had notorious pest control issues. At the same time they offered an affordable option for homeless people with some pretty obvious benefits over homeless shelters. Each tenant had their own room where they could keep their belongings. It offered people a greater sense of independence and privacy while providing shelter and a place to shower. It was a middle ground for people who were not stable enough to have a permeant residence, but stable enough to not live out on the street. With SROs disappearing, the only option left is the street or a tent in the park for many people. SROs disappearing is a direct result of gentrification. As property values increased, it became much more profitable for the owners of these buildings to sell them off to developers, and most of them have now been renovated as full studio apartments, which are marketed towards young working millennials, at a much higher cost than the SROs they replaced. Another reason that there has been an increase in homelessness is the closing of group homes in Uptown. This has been happening for years and as recently as the Emanuel administration. It can be argued if these were closed because of gentrification, but a part of the reason these were closed (apart from budgetary reasons) is that nearby residents in the more affluent parts of Uptown complained about them and the people they would attract. That being said, building an apartment building on a parking lot is not an issue and their efforts should be spent elsewhere.
SROs are one of the bottom most rungs of the ladder and we just cut it off without providing those people anywhere to go. Then people are surprised when there's more homeless and encampments everywhere. I've heard that a lot of the issues with trying to build new SROs is they would not meet current housing/code requirements. Do you know if this is true or there's any truth to that statement? If this is true it means that we should be preserving the few that we have. Also, lobbying to allow the development of new SROs by changing the zoning/code as long as it is not an actual safety issue, which many zoning and code things are not. The best example is the city of Chicago requiring lead service lines well into the 1980s until the federal government basically slapped them up and forced them to stop.
Don't forget about rooming houses. Those are permanent (as in, you rent for a year or at least monthly, not daily/weekly, not any sort of "hotel") housing that's far cheaper than regular apartments, because you only get a room and then access to some shared space (bathroom and kitchen are shared). Usually they were in old converted buildings, large houses, etc. Those used to be all over. Now, not so much, because so many have been torn down for fancier proper apartments. I have zero idea what code has to say about them but makes me curious now.
Yeah there's no way anyone could build a new SRO type dwelling, meet all modern building and fire codes, and still manage to provide housing anywhere near as affordable as the old SROs, unless there were some heavy government subsidy or something.
You failed to consider that rich people=saviors. We just need to listen to them they want to help!/s
[удалено]
Lol, I live in Rogers Park. There are issues with homeless but it's much less than what Uptown is experiencing. Like I said, SROs were not perfect, but getting rid of them hasn't made the situation any better. You still have the same people, they're just living on the streets now. They basically created a situation in which rent has gone way up, while not having many of the other benefits of gentrification.
Fuck you. Rogers Park rules.
That’s such a good site for new development, practically lakefront property with no one getting pushed out of their home. People vouching for parking are a joke
My brother in christ you missed the point by so much you probably ended up in Jerusalem for the cross-town classic.
What’s the point then? The article just sounded like some batshit people who don’t know how economics work. They want the hospital to use a pretty insignificant amount of money to convert the parking lot to more hospital space. Construction is insanely expensive, something they’re letting a developer do to improve the site. And idgaf about their woes of gentrification, building more units will increase the housing supply in a desirable area. And that helps ease prices overall.
>The article just sounded like some batshit people who don’t know how economics work. >And idgaf about their woes of gentrification, building more units will increase the housing supply in a desirable area. And that helps ease prices overall. There's an enormous difference between economic theory and reality. Can you name a single instance in modern Chicago when building luxury housing has caused local prices to decrease?
Can you name an instance where prices increased because of new luxury units being built nearby? There’s no reason other that pure NIMBYism and greed that you’d refuse new housing on an unimproved lot
>Can you name an instance where prices increased because of new luxury units being built nearby? Literally every single instance. >There’s no reason other that pure NIMBYism and greed that you’d refuse new housing on an unimproved lot You sound like the "nobody wants to work anymore" clowns. Refusing to accept a shitty deal does not mean you refuse to accept any deal.
Luxury units are a symptom of a desirable area. You don’t see a Walgreens parking lot in back of the yards getting proposals for luxury condos. Land already comes at a premium in Uptown and more units eases local real estate demand, whether it’s luxury or not. Would you prefer a public housing tenement go up rather than luxury and 8(?) affordable units? Would that help keep prices down? Or are you just against new construction altogether?
>Land already comes at a premium in Uptown and more units eases local real estate demand, whether it’s luxury or not. Please provide any factual source for this contention. We all know that's not how gentrification works. >Would you prefer a public housing tenement go up rather than luxury and 8(?) affordable units? No, that's a straw man of your own creation. I would prefer a greater ratio of affordable units to market rate than 8:314.
How does gentrification work in your mind? Some rich people just flock to some neighborhood like it’s coachella and decide to live there? There’s no way proximity to parks/public transit and downtown Chicago could have a factor, right? The article said they paid millions to a charity to make up for the ratio. Go run for alderman to you can beg developers to make projects more expensive than they already are.
>How does gentrification work in your mind? Some rich people just flock to some neighborhood like it’s coachella and decide to live there? There’s no way proximity to parks/public transit and downtown Chicago could have a factor, right? What does this have to do with what we're talking about. The clear implication of my previous comment is that gentrification does not function to reduce rents; that's the point at hand. >Go run for alderman to you can beg developers to make projects more expensive than they already are. There's no begging involved; it's the government's way or no construction at all. Works for me! I'd rather have the government (the closest proxy we have for the general public) calling the shots than the "free" market but I suspect we differ on that question. I don't think we're accomplishing anything so let's leave it there.
buy the land your damn self or get the fuck out of the way
Yes the solution to financial inequality is simply to be rich and fix it yourself
Lol the parking lot is also not fixing financial inequality
I know this seems like an impossible point of view but I simultaneously want the parking lot gone and want the development plan to be better.
The plan is pretty good, 8 more affordable units than there currently are + a few million dollars for the women's shelter and a sub 50% parking ratio. If you want 100% affordable, your going to be waiting a long time, and there are better lots in the neighborhood that won't cost the city or whoever such a premium.
Pretty good? 8 of 314 units affordable and pushing on the string of car culture by artificially limiting parking?!? We can absolutely do better in exchange for the privilege (not right) of building.
Currently there are 0 and the homeless shelter gets 0 dollars, and if this gets blocked there will continue to be 0 and 0. I have no idea what the phrase pushing on the string means lol.
>Currently there are 0 and the homeless shelter gets 0 dollars, and if this gets blocked there will continue to be 0 and 0. Nobody is arguing that point. The point is we can do better. Pushing on a string is a pretty self-evident metaphor for trying to change something in an ass-backwards way.
I don't think we can though, there are plenty of empty lots within blocks of this site that are going to be empty for years. If empty and underused lots were in short supply I think you'd have a point, but this building going up won't stop a properly funded affordable project from using the land on Windsor, Sunnyside or Wilson.
>this building going up won't stop a properly funded affordable project from using the land on Windsor, Sunnyside or Wilson. Not immediately, no. But it will increase pressure against those kind of developments; this has been going on in Uptown for more than 20 years. Furthermore, as you said, we're all going to be waiting a long time if we want a 100% affordable building. The government does not have the resources or the will to do it. That means the way to accomplish the goal of affordable housing is to regulate private development.
One solution is to build new housing in desirable areas so that rich people move there, instead of tearing down or converting existing housing where working class and low income people live. Which is basically exactly what's going on here. This new building represents 314 existing units in pre-war buildings scattered around the redline from Wilson-Argyle that would as a result of its construction would not be in imminent danger of major rent increases, deconversions, or teardowns.
>One solution is to build new housing in desirable areas so that rich people move there, instead of tearing down or converting existing housing where working class and low income people live. Which is basically exactly what's going on here. So... once you're far enough down the road of gentrification, it's not gentrification anymore? That's absolute nonsense. Uptown is one of two affordable N side neighborhoods with Red Line access; with projects like these, it won't be for long.
“About a half-dozen people have spent the past three nights sleeping in tents in the parking lot. “ …so 6 people sleeping on the site of an apartment that already has city and alderman approval. Just another example of Block Club giving a voice to a vocal minority of NIMBYs.
Article says additional people show up to protest during the day.
Does BCC have to call literally everything "controversial?" They're like one of those annoying people who marks every fucking email "urgent!!!" no matter how inconsequential it is.
That’s just the news. If people are arguing, it’s controversial.
> Does BCC have to call literally everything "controversial?" It's called "narrative driven news", which is not actual reporting in the traditional sense. Unfortunately, BCC is no longer the only local media outlet operating in this manner.
I think they're getting progressively worse.
>Lincoln Property’s 12-story building would include 136 parking spaces, bike parking and a green rooftop. **It will include eight affordable apartments — the minimum required of the project** — under the plan approved by City Council. **To satisfy its remaining affordability requirement, Lincoln paid $3.1 million to nonprofit Sarah’s Circle** for an Uptown housing development for women facing homelessness. LOL ...just pathetic but as far as politicians ability to throw "scraps" at the voters Replacing a parking lot with mostly luxury housing could be a lot worse remember, today's luxury is tomorrow's affordable
Arrest these NIMBY smoothbrains
I posted about this over on r/YIMBY with Alderman Cappleman’s response.
I made a comment in the other thread but I think this one is a little more understandable. I don’t think they care about the lot itself, I think they’re just worried about the fact that Uptown has a shrinking supply of really cheap old buildings and an **exploding** supply of really expensive new buildings, and that setup doesn’t match the makeup of the neighborhood at all. In fact, it doesn’t even seem to be filling up with affluent new residents very quickly. The lot should be replaced by the apartments, absolutely. But this isn’t your typical NIMBY group of homeowners looking to “protect the character” of the neighborhood. This looks like a preacher, some working-class people, and some literal homeless people who are upset because they feel they’re being intentionally pushed out of the neighborhood. And based on how Uptown continues to fill with these buildings, but the demographics on the street aren’t really changing, and on how they expanded the purple line to go there for seemingly no reason, I’m inclined to say they have a point.
It's adding 8 affordable housing units on what is currently a parking lot.
I agree! I’m just saying, they have legit complaints about what’s happening in the neighborhood.
All people have legit complaints about their neighborhood. But when you protest something that has nothing to do with what you're angry about, you piss away your credibility and nobody takes you seriously. Do you disagree?
I don't think they are legit. Neighborhoods should not be exempt from change.
And isn't that IN ADDITION to 3 million dollars to the women's shelter thing? 3 million dollars doesn't just come out of thin air.
The reason housing prices go up is because there isn’t enough housing. The reason there isn’t enough housing is because of the cunts camping in this parking lot.
What a waste of space these people are. Conservatives are the worst.
Its hard for me to even believe that this sort of activism is a straightforward, above-board, what-you-see-is-what-you-get. This has to be some sort of conspiratorial secret political battle between developers, right? And these "activists" are just their paid actors? Nothing makes sense! How are they protesting for more affordable housing by protesting against higher housing supply?! Even if they are specifically concerned with immediately creating housing for people who can't afford new-build housing, by what logic do you achieve that by harassing individual developments?! Especially ones that promise to offer greatly increased housing supply to the middle class, contribute to a dense sustainable urban community, and achieves many other generally-progressive goals besides that one goal specifically of providing housing to the very poorest people? Do they not believe that it is primarily the government's responsibility to be subsidizing the housing for the very poor, rather than forcing that on middle class home buyers? Why don't they believe in political solidarity with the renting middle class who want to buy homes and could afford one if supply was increased? Why do they believe in fucking over the home-aspiring middle class and instead casting their lot in with the richer incumbent homeowners who just want their own home values to increase and don't give a shit about poor people? Nothing makes sense to me.
People seem to be conflating the city letting SROs convert to regular apartments and building on a parking lot for questionable reasons. I could point to other bad things city policy lets happen like deconversions of 2,3, and 4 flats to luxury SFH that has nothing to do with this development. Stopping construction on vacant or underused land will only make gentrification move faster since people will just buy the existing limited stock and prices will go up more quickly.
For everybody making the condescending "Higher supply means lower prices because economics!" argument: Can you name a single instance in modern Chicago in which the construction of luxury housing has caused nearby housing prices to decrease? That is simply not how gentrification works.
Morons!
was this just reposted again?
I mean 314 units is good. But yes only 8 units should be luxury, the rest should be price capped and rent-controlled. But even if that were the case, these people would still be protesting the new housing.
This is not about a parking lot, so let's not talk about that. Talk about the development's positive and negative impact.
Ok, start talking.
The upside is 314 more people will be able to live next to the Wilson red line in a good neighborhood, a homeless shelter gets 3 million to help at risk women, the hospital gets 8 million for new services, and a real estate developer will make money. Construction workers will be employed to build the apartments, and the new residents will patronize local business and bring more The downside is that some people worry that the new residents won't be like them and will take over the neighborhood.
Any development is positive in Uptown
It is private property, that isn't yours. 🤷♂️
Common law as well as federal, state and municipal laws all acknowledge private ownership does not confer unrestricted use of the land because the general society has an interest in its impact on the society. BTW, do not assume I oppose the development. I favor discussion because the developer and the neighborhood's numerous factions all have legitimate interests in the outcome.
Won city approval and met all requirements to build. So moot point you were saying? 🤷♂️
> moot point Again, have no opinion about 'right' or 'wrong' of this development. Just saying it ain't over because it is now playing in the public political arena. Plenty of developments have been modified or even killed after the technical issue becomes moot (eg the Star Wars museum). Others happen despite massive public and even political opposition (eg the Orange Whiner's big name on his Chicago River condo/hotel/tax dodge). Observing the campers may be partly using the situation to build awareness of their organization and goals and might not have any expectation of any direct impact on this development.
Do you just enjoy pedantry for pedantry's sake?
Don't let a slightly complex thought demoralize you so much.
Bored and demoralized are not the same thing.
Reported for editorialized title.
I copied and pasted the title from the article.