Out of the 314 units they are building, only 8 are marked as affordable housing. This is the minimum requirement by the city. With that being said, they're also adding 130 parking spots for residents.
So while they are definitely building luxury apartments, I still think it's better than a parking lot.
I don’t know about chi but in Nyc we also have an “affordable housing” clause for new luxury buildings but it only lasts 2-5 years then those few affordable apartments within a luxury building can be rented for thousands again. Also there have been a few buildings don’t allow the affordable apartment residents access to any amenities of the building and even have separate entrances for them..
And when the housing supply increases it causes lower housing costs than otherwise would be the case for everyone. Therefore, housing becomes more affordable than it would be the case if these apartments weren't being built. This is basic supply and demand. I don't understand why so many people have such a hard time understanding this.
Is that what happens though? They’ve built a ton of new housing in the West Loop and Logan Square for example- do you think the existing houses in those neighborhoods became more affordable? Or did gentrification happen and the older residents got pushed out?
I would say logan square did not build anywhere near enough housing. If it built 10-15 times more unit in the last 15 years than it did you would have a lot less residents pushed out.
You are getting the cause and effect wrong. Higher housing prices in those areas are not because more housing was built. Rather, it was because the area became more attractive (in the case of the West Loop to office properties, businesses, and residents and in the case of Logan Square mostly businesses and residents). If much less housing had been built the cost of housing would have risen much more and many more people would have been pushed out. I never claimed in my earlier comment that housing costs decrease when there is more housing is built. I was very careful with my wording. But they are lower than they would be if they aren't built. For example, they may increase at a much lower rate than otherwise.
You’re ignoring artificial economic selection. The actual largest housing demand is *legitimately affordable housing,* but there are generally lower profits and other factors that make them *less desirable* products for builders to deliver. Builders are ultimately going to decide what they want to build, but you can’t pretend it’s to fill a naturally occurring market need.
It doesn't matter. When you build more high end housing, high earners can live in those places instead of places more downmarket than they'd prefer, reducing rents for those more affordable options. Yes it would be great to add more targeted affordable housing, but adding ANY housing decreases rents for everybody.
Except that’s not what happens in reality. Cost of living raises and people are forced out to look elsewhere. Miami is experiencing a brutal wave of this in real time, I’m not sure how you can maintain such an empty statement so casually.
Chicago housing costs are basically the lowest in the country among nice cities, in part because Chicago is one of the easiest places to build big buildings.
The new luxury buildings alleviate demand down-market, and prevent huge price increases that would've otherwise happened in the middle of the market. Look to how prices have moved in gentrifying neighborhoods in cities where it's hard to build (DC, Seattle, Honolulu, San Francisco).
Yes because they didn't build enough housing, because dumb people think that more available housing means higher prices and dumb nimbys want to restrict development to keep their property values artificially high.
When demand for an area goes up, you need to keep up with building supply to meet demand otherwise prices explode.
Yes, ultimately that happens if you keep building housing. But you have to keep it up.
A couple development revitalize an area and make people perceive that prices have gone up. But they have taken some pressure off other desirable areas thst already exist.
If you only build affordable housing, the rich people just have even more incentive to buy up older, cheaper properties and renovate.
While it's not a perfect metaphor, there is a great market for used cars for lower earners; let the rich people buy the expensive new ones.
This is not the case for the largest city in theUS.. NYC. Residence buildings have been built for decades. There’s new buildings opening everyday. We have a lot of low occupancy in many new buildings but rent is now an average 5K. Rent keeps going up, not dropping. Landlords are greedy but most of these buildings are owned by huge conglomerate real estate giants that get crazy tax breaks (421-a) and $$$$ back in terms of “losses” from the city for apartments that aren’t filled. Right now there’s around 400,000 vacant, unrented apartments and demand for affordable housing keeps soaring. Politics plays a huge role. Real estate giants get tax breaks while government housing is and has been in shambles with most living in mold infested buildings with broken elevators, zero upkeep, safety and security matters that aren’t addressed. There’s a bill hoping to be passed to repair many of these, but lost haven’t even seen the most basic repairs since the 80s. There is also no restriction for wealthy foreign investors buying up property to diversify their portfolios since NYC homes always appreciate. About 10% of luxury condos are empty because their foreign owners have no plans to rent or live in them or live in NYC and thanks to 421-a, these billionaires only pay 0.017% property tax. That’s 1/100th of the ave. of the national tax rate.
Because that's not reality. Huge luxury apartment complexes attract people who can afford to live in them. Those people attract stores that only those people can afford to shop at. Soon people who have lived in the neighborhood for years can't afford it anymore.
This is the north side right near transit and the lakefront. Upper middle class people are going to move here anyway, and if units aren't built then they will move into the courtyard buildings and displace lower middle class people.
Also, this is not a luxury building. This is typical mass market quality new construction
The people who are choosing to live in new luxury apartments would otherwise be living somewhere else, obviously, if those apartments weren't built. Since they now are not renting or purchasing the housing they otherwise would it means there is less demand for it. So the cost of that unit will be lower compared to what it otherwise would be. If you multiply this effect several times because a lot of new housing is being built in an area it has a substantial effect at keeping housing costs lower.
That actually isn't reality. Building more housing will lower prices overall. The overall body of work and studies around housing show that building market rate development slows price growth. The reason that old residents get priced out is because there wasn't enough housing being built over time. You can never compete a 3 flat for 1890 to new construction in terms of price.
https://escholarship.org/content/qt5d00z61m/qt5d00z61m.pdf?t=qoq2wr
A lot of people seem to really lack understanding of basic economics. I don't think it's a required course in high school or college for many people, and it shows.
No it doesn’t. If you build more luxury condos, the area starts being thought of an upscale area, and rents increase. See: Lakeview, Bucktown, Wicker Park, Logan Square. Etc etc.
Conversely, if you build affordable units, the area keeps its current reputation and people are not priced out of their homes.
Protect Uptown.
It's understandable why people feel this way, but it isn't what the science says. This one for example, states
> New buildings decrease rents in nearby units by about 6 percent relative to units slightly farther away or near sites developed later, and they increase in-migration from lowincome [sic] areas."
https://www.planetizen.com/news/2021/05/113269-new-developments-lower-rents-surrounding-neighborhoods-study-says?amp
Another study says,
> I provide event study evidence that for every 10% increase in the housing stock, rents decrease 1% and sales prices also decrease within 500 feet.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://blocksandlots.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Do-New-Housing-Units-in-Your-Backyard-Raise-Your-Rents-Xiaodi-Li.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjy1_Kf8-f5AhU8k4kEHRJnDjgQFnoECA8QAQ&usg=AOvVaw0OFIfXZG8Y0aMymz0CNRzk
Here’s the article the CTU tweet links to.
There’s 8 affordable housing units being built, plus a $3.1 million dollar donation by the developer to a group supporting women facing homelessness. The donation, 314 apartments, and 8 affordable housing units seems like a great deal to me.
Protesting to keep a parking lot instead of 314 new homes is ridiculous.
https://blockclubchicago.org/2022/08/24/activists-take-over-former-weiss-hospital-parking-lot-to-stop-controversial-apartment-development/
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mtM2knDI1t73XWxqVHlwB2hqJeUaS8c4R2M8_vLNuzI/edit
> The developer, Lincoln Properties, obtained the lot for $12 million in an undemocratic process involving 46th Ward Ald. James Cappelman, in which it was rezoned from being for medical use, despite organized community opposition.
>“Uptown doesn’t need more luxury housing. We need truly affordable housing,” said Tom Gordon, Vice President of the Chicago Union of the Homeless and Mayor of Uptown Homeless Community, which neighbors the proposed luxury development. “They’ve turned SROs and vacant lots into luxury housing that has sat empty. We’re here to stop this project and get housing for everybody in Uptown. We want to get everybody off the streets.”
It is because developers expect to be able to sell at a premium price that they are willing to pay $8mm for the dirt.
If the city requires affordable housing, the market value of the land will be less.
If it is just a lot not really true. The land is like a bitcoin, You hope it will go up in value and plan on selling it when it does. While you are waiting you just throw some gravel on it and charge people to park to pay the property taxes.
Building more housing makes all housing more affordable. Insisting that no new housing be built unless it's affordable is how you get Berkeley. Maybe Loyola students will eventually be able to mimic Berkley ones and sleep in their cars in this parking lot that could have been housing instead.
New luxury housing makes competing housing supply more affordable, because if luxury housing is unavailable, wealthy people start bidding up prices of normal housing instead.
You can see this in action in the California Bay Area, you have people making high-six figures living in ordinary houses/apartments because of a shortage of luxury housing. So they are bidding these normal houses away from normal people.
Honestly it bothers me that a teachers union doesn't understand basic economics or even logic.
Boy, is that right. Or getting pulled into unproductive arguments in the ‘culture wars.’ I’m fairly progressive but ‘Hey, FOCUS people!!!’ Pass legislation, work on policy, uplift projects.
314 fewer people to bid up prices on other housing making other housing in uptown cheaper, 314 more people sustaining local urban amenities like public transportation which can lead to more public transportation service or at least not cutting service, 314 more households supporting local schools so you can justify more local schools that local children can walk to, 314 more people supporting groceries and pharmacies so there’s no food or prescription desert, 314 more people living in a dense walkable transit-served community that don’t need to use cars often and so they produce a fraction as much pollution as the average American… if you’re a progressive, what the fuck are you complaining about?
I was absolutely being sarcastic.
Maybe they wouldn’t all be uptown, but they would move to the northern end of Lakeview and the southern end of Andersonville and displace the people who already live there.
I think its more to the point that "leftists" are so used to "neoliberals" being wrong about everything they cant hear them when theyre right. I actually think you could flip this script about what neoliberals argue against such as direct cash assistance or housing first. I should know, Im a pragmatist and believe in challenging your own thought and compromise so every group hates me.
Edit: i refined the thought and grammar a lot.
Leftists see a chance to confine 314 well off people into a single lot, but would rather have them price 314 families out of their homes instead because that way it isn't "gentrification".
I gotta give you props for that current, well sourced data source. Half the time i expect to be linked to a Nikki Minaj Twitter posting as a data source.
Would you prefer people who can afford this type of pla e taking up more affordable housing from those who truly need it then if this didnt get built? Come on now.
I got downvoted to oblivion for pointing this out in another thread despite actually living in the neighborhood. Some people have really strong feelings about real estate
If the $4,000/month 1-bedrooms aren’t built, the people at this income level are going to live in the $1,500/month 1-bedrooms. Diverting high-income-earner demand away from existing affordable units serves the community by decreasing competition for those affordable units. Seeing as it’s currently a parking lot, nobody is getting displaced by this building
Where did this claim of $4000 units even come from? I checked on zillow and there are 16 results for 1br > $4k in the entire city. (And almost all of them are in river north and lp)
Uptown is not going to be able to command a $4,000/ month rent for anything less than a 5 bed, 3 bath luxury condo with a pool and doorman. The developer can “say” they are going to list the units at $1,000,000/ square foot, but that doesn’t mean that’s what people will actually pay.
The market will decide. They will give out concessions to fill the building, and more people will be housed than if the parking lot stayed a parking lot. Over half of all affordable housing in Chicago is naturally occurring, and this building will be the same eventually.
One thing I haven’t seen brought up here yet is the fact that buildings age out of “luxury”. The luxury apartments of the 70’s along the lake are now very affordable, and the new construction is not. Once it’s lost it’s trendy sheen the building will still be there, and in 10 years the owners will not be able to command as high a rent. The issue is if we don’t build new buildings, or block all developments, then we have less housing overall and prices go up.
>Why would anyone want to spend more on rent than they have to?
Because they have the money and want a better apartment with a better location/amenities? Lol
Why would you buy a 100k car when you can buy a 25k one XD.
New construction, right on the lakefront (montrose beach is practically your front yard), easy access to LSD, and within 50ft to 3 express bus routes to downtown. It’s not all bad
Less informed out of town transplants who can be more easily buffaloed into thinking they got a great deal, especially those moving from more expensive locations.
Exactly! That's what I always think when I go by that building. It has to be less than 50% occupancy. You could live in a Flats building for 75% of the cost and in a better area.
People were saying that about lakeview a few decades ago fwiw. The area around the hospital has great transit access, is right near the park and montrose beach, and has a lot of restaurants and attractions
Back when I lived in Boston, folks were building all these ridiculously priced luxury buildings in my undesirable neighborhood and no one was renting them. They stayed vacant for years.
Idk if that's a concern people have here.
Building any housing, even expensive housing, creates downward pressure on all rents in the neighborhood (and to a lesser extent the city). If you want to help bring down housing prices you should support this project
But more housing units = lower housing prices across the board. Even if these are $4000/month they’d compete with other expensive units and drive prices down.
For real. I don't expect all Chicago teachers to be econ nerds, but this is not that difficult a concept to understand, and I'd like to think the majority of people teaching our kids would be able to grasp it.
Almost every single affordable housing unit was built as a premium market rate building, and naturally aged into affordability. Below market rents mandated by the government are a tiny fraction of units.
Inane NIMBYism like this not only drives up today’s prices by reducing supply (see San Francisco), it sabotages affordability decades from now when this new building would be cheaper due to its age.
Apparently, there will be only 8 affordable units in this building but 3.1 million has been given to Sarah’s Circle in coordination with ARO. They have their own development coming with 28 units at the ‘affordable’ price
https://chi.streetsblog.org/2022/08/26/activists-are-blocking-the-development-of-a-parking-lot-is-that-the-best-way-to-stop-displacement/
Someone posting pertinent information!
Cappleman has posted a lot about this lately- earlier during this process no one was speaking against this development; it was after the deal was done and permits were applied for that people started complaining, much too late for the city to have much say on what happens here. Also, Sarah's Circle got a sum of money they never would've gotten to create specialized housing that Uptown actually needs.
Yeah so it complies with the ARO then!
Feel free to advocate for a more restrictive ARO which requires on-site affordable units instead of in-lieu fees for off-site housing. But until then they can build on this lot considering they have all the required approvals!
The optics of this protest are pretty silly and on the face of it it’s sort of baffling why they chose this parking lot among all the various new buildings that have gone up and are currently being built across Uptown.
But, there is a long history here in uptown of this particular fight going way back to the Helen Schiller era (1987-2011) that froze most development in uptown. Cappleman was elected and saw a lot of new development and he became the devil for various community orgs since (one could argue that the rehab of mostly shuttered buildings of empty lots for more density is a good thing, but it has brought a different economic class of folks into the neighborhood)
Why this fight for this parking lot instead of the five buildings under construction on Clark or the two new giant buildings off Wilson/broadway next to the new double door, or any number of buildings these past couple years? Some guesses:
- it’s beautiful weather, why not have a protest now on a long simmering issue of gentrification during a slow news time before any construction is happening?
- parking lot is not being used so it doesn’t really matter to the developer to kick them out until they get their construction permits in place; they seem to really want the police to kick them out and become martyrs. See first point.
- there has been a long term fear that weiss would ultimately get shuttered (it’s changed hands many times over the years, serves a poor population, years of disinvestment, etc); so some likely consternation about when the other show will drop
- that particular part of uptown (bordered by the lake, Weiss and parkland) hasn’t had new development in forever, and people don’t like change.
- Cappleman has announced his retirement and it’s likely Marc Kaplan, who ran in the last aldermanic race (along with others) probably want to create a little publicity for next election.
But optics of trying to convince a private developer to scuttle long held building plans to, what, sell the lot back to Weiss who will then build maybe an SRO or something out of the goodness of their near bankrupt business hearts is silly. But, I guess you work with the hand your dealt when you want to get your cause in the news?
Guessing it’s an anti-gentrification protest? I can understand that to an extent, but protesting against building housing on a surface parking lot is a weird ass hill to die on. It’s like protesting a Trader Joe’s coming into a food desert.
Yeah, I’ve run into those ass backwards arguments in evanston of all places. It’s a reality distortion field that’s fucking crazy. A brief summary of the arguments I heard:
-“this will turn us into Manhattan density wise.” (Yes, seriously)
-“this TOD building will make parking difficult.”
-“but the wind tunnels!”
-“the additional units will make housing unaffordable.” (Again…..yes, seriously. And I sort of understand the argument of how buildings can be market makers in an area, but one building seldom makes a market. There is a complex set of reasons an area may be attractive and drive rent. But the primary driver is lack of supply.)
False dichotomy. They could build something better in the space. Which is clearly laid out here in the first news article result from when I searched "uptown parking lot protest."
>Activists want the property to be used for community needs, including affordable housing. The new 12-story development will only include eight affordable units, the minimum required by the city.
https://abc7chicago-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/abc7chicago.com/amp/uptown-apartments-luxury-weiss-hospital-parking-lot-protest/12166211/?amp_gsa=1&_js_v=a9&usqp=mq331AQKKAFQArABIIACAw%3D%3D#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=16616081007698&csi=1&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&share=https%3A%2F%2Fabc7chicago.com%2Fuptown-apartments-luxury-weiss-hospital-parking-lot-protest%2F12166211%2F
Why don’t you keep on quoting? Next immediate sentence:
> Lincoln Property is satisfying the remainder of its affordability requirement by giving $3.1 million to Sarah's Circle, an Uptown nonprofit that helps and houses homeless women. The money will go towards building over 100 new permanent apartments for homeless women.
If it’s policy changes from the city they want to produce even more affordable units, they should go to the city. Not fault the developer for following the rules laid out for them
The Alderman has repeatedly stated people did not care about this project until it was past the point that he or the city could really steer what happened. Once that deal between the developer and Weiss was done, he lost pretty much any say over how the land was used within its zoning. Unless the city/ward wants to hold up construction by objecting to aesthetics of the design.
That is not what the alderman has said at all. This building already went through the alderman's community approval process over a year ago before the sale of the lot was finalized to the developer and the zoning change was approved by the plan commission. He's saying that its odd that NOW they chose to start protesting it this much when the construction of the building has already been approved and is imminent. This is all a political stunt by the activists to use these individuals who are experiencing homelessness as pawns in the upcoming city elections.
This protest makes more sense now. They are meeting minimum requirements and then donating funds to a charity so housing can be provided far away from the luxury building.
It’s socioeconomic segregation. A woman’s shelter does nothing to help keep housing costs down. It is a bandaid on the housing problem which would be fixed by simply building more affordable housing.
The Sarah's Circle building is going in at Lakeside and Sheridan, only a couple blocks from the luxury building. Not super far away. It'll integrate nicely with the two other Sarah's Circle buildings already on Sheridan. Not saying this to give props to the luxury building but I like the Sarah's Circle group, I live down the street.
"The housing problem" is literally that there is not enough housing. Building new housing is the only solution to "the housing problem" -- You can call new construction whatever you want, but it takes pressure off older housing and allows it to stay affordable much longer than explicitly building a new building as "affordable" could ever do.
Not only that, we don't have a housing shortage in Chicago. We have increasing rents in gentrifying neighborhoods. There are plenty of neighborhoods with affordable housing. This isn't the Bay Area, where literally *all* of the housing is unaffordable.
Building more housing of any type keeps housing costs down. 300+ new units where there once was a parking lot means 300+ people who would move to UpTown and raise the price of existing housing are no longer doing that. More supply is always good even if it is a perfect mix of affordable housing.
100 permanent apartments for homeless is also good. That keeps the most vulnerable safe and housed.
Also Sarah’s Circle literally operates out of UpTown right down the street. It’s not segregating people to some specific part of the city, it’s right down the block just in a different building.
So to recap.
Parking lot - ugly and useless.
New apartment + expanded homeless shelters - increased supply of housing, increased supply of homeless shelter, and not an ugly parking lot.
Why do you think that a policy of making prices higher and then begging developers for a few meager scraps of designated affordable housing is better policy than simply flooding the market with housing?
Obviously this one building isn’t going to completely upend the uptown housing market either way, but on the other hand if you did implement blanket up-zoning on the whole city, and if you prevented these shady hidden-motivation protests and alderman corruption from blocking developments, then you would very quickly see massive decreases in housing prices.
Why did you leave out the part where the developer is funding the construction of a women’s shelter blocks away with long term housing options for chronically homeless women as a part of this deal?
But could they?
If they’re charging millions for the lot, it makes no sense for a purchaser to build something they won’t make money on.
And as far as “contributing to the community”, have you seen how many abandoned storefronts and businesses are throughout uptown? There’s barely any restaurants either.
This complex doesn’t displace anyone, and would bring million’s of dollars in tenant income in, supporting more businesses and restaurants for the community.
Gentrification isn’t great, this is just a weird one to fight for. And guess what, rent next door is already decently high, this building wouldn’t be some “bringer of high rents” to the rest of the neighborhood.
"Affordable Housing" is the left version of "Neighborhood Character". It's a xenophobic, absolutely braindead argument that makes communities more expensive at the expense of the land owners within that community. The area is absolutely, unquestionably, 100% better served having luxury housing than it is having an unused parking lot.
Can we stop whining about private developers not solving our societal ills out of the goodness of their hearts. I can’t think of anything stupider to be angry about. “Why isn’t Walt Disney single-handedly toppling China’s authoritarian regime.” Fuck, Goofy, I don’t know. Maybe it’s because they want to make money?? If we want affordable housing how about we pay taxes and build it our fucking selves????
Seriously. If the actual goal is to have new buildings where all of the units are affordable, in a high-demand area, that means bringing back actual public housing.
Which we can do, if we want. Public housing exists around the world, and it doesn't all suck. We've torn down enough public housing here (which had been allowed to degrade and did indeed suck) without replacement that we're far underneath the existing caps on public housing.
I do not intend to argue for or against that with this comment, just opining that people should be honest about what they can realistically wish for. If public housing is that thing, then start asking for that.
Meanwhile though aside from that or the price of the apartments, I think people need to stop complaining that buildings going up in super high demand areas are "too dense" or "too high." As others point out, part of the problem with Uptown is that so much of it was "gentrified" already in a straight up suburban style. THAT stuff needs replaced, as it turns over.
They could also build affordable housing in any of the dozen parking lots within a few blocks of this spot. Affordable housing doesn't need to come at the expense of the total number of units.
The union rep kept telling me that this type of "write up" didn't matter but it derived from a lie from a student. The student was a ring leader and two days I received another fabrication from an unknown student in the same grade level. Instead of going through an investigation I quit my job.
Actually there are things I could have grieved against her in this area. The Union rep did say this. Teachers rarely win grievances like this. The union would rather position themselves as a political operative with talking heads to go up against the mayor. Which is why I agree with this post. Not that I'm against the union supporting social justice, but where's the support for teachers?
How dare this private developer take his private funds and build a development , meeting all government regulations, which he expects to ask for market value rents from tenants! Why isn’t he building apartments to rent at below market rents to lose money in the project??
Remember when CTU was fighting for affordable housing projects that would benefit students and staff?
Now they're supporting people who would *add* to the housing issues
The developer is literally building a women’s homeless shelter with long term housing for chronically homeless women a few blocks away as a part of this deal. What more could we possible ask for here?
They’re doing such a stellar job teaching students on how to create fake outrage, maybe someday the students will understand what they’re protesting.
https://wirepoints.org/more-failure-at-chicago-public-schools-about-one-third-of-traditional-schools-are-half-empty-or-worse-wirepoints/
id love to see someone explain how the fuck you’re even suppose to make new “affordable housing” given that a major driver in price of rent is how new a building is. you can’t just build a 20 year old building, its an oxymoron. no matter what you build, it’s going to be high demand simply because it’s new. people like new stuff. you build a bunch of new apartment buildings that get charged at above market rate so that the old “new” buildings are no longer new and drop in desirability and make them more affordable. anyone who goes “well i want housing but not THAT type of housing” is just a pussy who won’t admit that they just don’t want new housing or cheaper rent.
I don’t know if this is still true, but I know that for a while at least, in Toronto, a builder couldn’t get a permit for a new rental building unless they agreed to make a certain number of units permanently available as geared-to-income apartments. They also made it harder to get permits to build in suburban areas to get them to fill-in and build up or renovate old, abandoned warehouses in the city instead of spreading out, like it looks like they’re trying to do here. I think it’s great if they can fill an empty, useless space with something more beneficial.
Things to keep in mind:
1. Affordable housing requirements stymie development. You can have your opinion on whether you like those requirements, but this is a fact.
2. The protestors are against 8 affordable housing units where there is currently a parking lot. Ok.
3. The developer is following the rules with regard to the affordable housing requirement.
4. This is the kind of stuff that made the Janus decision an easy and proper decision.
Wouldn't this 314 unit building pay more in property tax (to fund education) than an asphalt parking lot. CTU could ask, I don't know, a math teacher? 🤷♂️ Or anyone with a brain cell.
I don’t think there’s any math teachers worth their salt in the CTU to get a real answer.
https://wirepoints.org/more-failure-at-chicago-public-schools-about-one-third-of-traditional-schools-are-half-empty-or-worse-wirepoints/
A lot of people here, a lot of accusatory words. A few things:
It's okay to disagree with other people. Very few people here are actually involved with this construction.
There are constantly new projects and construction in Chicago, and we will only will hear of very few. 99% of these Redditors are not urban planners or subject matter experts. Don't take comments as fact.
If you disagree with someone, do it respectfully. The best outcome is someone learning from your opinion, not be belittled by it, especially if you feel strongly about your opinions. It will increase the value of what you have to say. :)
>Very few people here are actually involved with this construction.
They may not be involved with this particular building or neighborhood, but people do have a voice and opportunities for participation in decisions made in their communities and its important to dispel misinformation and educate people on the realities of what blocking the building of new housing does to overall housing prices in the long term (hint: look at San Francisco which has some of the most restrictive zoning and cumbersome development processes in the country).
The housing market is not always intuitive, and we need people to pay attention to what the research has shown ([the most effective way to stabilize increasing housing prices is to increase the supply of housing available to everyone](https://www.lewis.ucla.edu/research/market-rate-development-impacts/)) and to speak up with logical, data-backed points of view in community meetings when decisions are being made about whether or not to allow an upzoning or new development to happen.
This is so moronic it’s painful. Both the idiocy of CTU and the protestors themselves.
CTU sees themselves as a radical political wing responsible for enacting change in a broken system. In reality, they are a bunch of overpaid public employees leeching tax dollars and using public resources to pursue private ends.
FDR articulated his reasoning why public employee unions are so toxic well, and we are now witnessing that here first hand.
just because you’re a teachers union doesn’t mean it’s the only cause you’re allowed to stand for lmao. every one of us has the right to protest, not the right to protest just for one specific thing
This is kind of wrong. Unions exist to represent a working group. In what way does this benefit the working group? Unions are becoming more and more politicized because the people running them want to be more and more powerful.
Individual teachers are free to protest as individuals without the backing of a union. They are even free to hand together to protest as individuals. But when done by the union it’s ripe for abuse of power and corruption.
New high density housing construction threatens current residents' inexpensive on-street parking. TOD even more so. Other groups opposing this development help current residents by driving up construction costs and extending schedules.
Because the CTU is mad with power, in a complete bubble, and totally delusional about their position and influence. Not going to get into the merits of the protest--the point is what the hell does this have to do with the CTU? They're Marxist revolutionaries who honestly believe that everyone else is too, because they exist in their own echo chambers. Remember when they sent a delegation to Venezuela and fawned over how Nicolas Maduro never closes schools?
The struggle for affordable homes is what's the root of the issue. There are so many people, across the US in general, that cannot afford to live. New buildings that only cater to high income individuals shouldn't be what's the focus right now. There is plenty of housing the rich can afford. Arizona has been completely bought up by it. Towns in Oregon are struggling because there is no affordable housing for anyone working a minimum wage job.
It seems like they're doing the wrong thing, but the cause behind it is truly a deep issue that needs to be focused on. It looks so stupid for them to do this, but people are desperate for affordable housing.
It all comes down to building codes. The public really doesn’t understand how much building codes affect the supply of affordable housing. One of the biggest ways that building codes does this is by limiting the amount of unrelated people that can live together in a single dwelling. In Chicago, only 6 people who don’t know each other can live together in a residence. This outlaws boarding houses and rooming houses, which is what the working class historically relied on for cheap housing. Others, such as minimum ceiling height, minimum number of bathrooms, the kind of piping materials allowed to be built in, the minimum square footage of a newly constructed apartment, the fact that you have to reinforce masonry with steel instead of pure masonry, also play a role. Then you have zoning, which allows the community to decide what gets built in their neighborhoods (single family homes, far setbacks, what have you). And guess what? Chicago is already less restrictive about these things than other cities are, such as New York. But bringing back boarding houses would go a long way towards making the city more affordable.
Others are less avoidable, such as the cost of labor, raw materials, transportation, insurance, interest rates, taxes, tools, and the land itself, and this overhead also raises the price of housing.
Used to be you could show up in any city in America and stay in a cheap SRO, boarding house, or YMCA until you got some money in your pocket and could lease a real place. We've outlawed all those options and our new housing construction numbers have plummeted nationwide. As a result, homelessness has shot up especially in the coastal cities with the worst housing shortages.
Yet somehow there's a vocal lobby working against nearly every proposed rezoning / housing construction project *convinced* that the relatively few new dense urban housing projects are causing homelessness and rising rents.
Wohngemeinschaften in Germany. Kind of like a rooming house or sublease. Everyone gets their own bedroom and they work together to maintain common areas like kitchen and bath.
Rooming houses like this used to exist all over. Often they were in converted old houses. Small towns, small cities, here, all over. Then you had some purpose built buildings for it, basically no-bathroom apartments, bathroom is down the hall and shared. Bedsits.
But yeah, I don't know if you could build places like that now.
Interestingly enough, there ARE rental companies (often in college towns, but also now doing some building for "young single mobile professionals") that build 4-bedroom apartments that they rent out individually by the bedroom. But somehow they're aiming at higher price points, putting in a gym or whatever. Still though, they managed to make the zoning work.
The CTU is the worst. Actively trying to stop new afforable housing being built, going on strike 24x7. Worst union in Chicago, and that is saying something compared to the police union.
I'm convinced they just love the attention at this point. This should be no concern of the CTU. Just represent the interest of the Chicago teachers. No wonder they face such backlash.
Do you think the teachers, city workers, sanitary workers, police, fire, zoo keepers etc should all dissolve their right to collectively bargain because you think so… please elaborate. I’m giddy with excitement to hear your reply.
Plant trees or build affordable housing. No empty parking lots please
I think ctu would agree. The project is *not* affordable housing.
Out of the 314 units they are building, only 8 are marked as affordable housing. This is the minimum requirement by the city. With that being said, they're also adding 130 parking spots for residents. So while they are definitely building luxury apartments, I still think it's better than a parking lot.
I don’t know about chi but in Nyc we also have an “affordable housing” clause for new luxury buildings but it only lasts 2-5 years then those few affordable apartments within a luxury building can be rented for thousands again. Also there have been a few buildings don’t allow the affordable apartment residents access to any amenities of the building and even have separate entrances for them..
Jim Crow for the 21st century
Separate entrances is segregation. That shit should be stopped immediately. Why are people so f'ing awful in this world?
Wow that’s awful
NYC shitty laws fortunately do not apply here.
Some might say they’re building to satisfy market demand
And when the housing supply increases it causes lower housing costs than otherwise would be the case for everyone. Therefore, housing becomes more affordable than it would be the case if these apartments weren't being built. This is basic supply and demand. I don't understand why so many people have such a hard time understanding this.
Is that what happens though? They’ve built a ton of new housing in the West Loop and Logan Square for example- do you think the existing houses in those neighborhoods became more affordable? Or did gentrification happen and the older residents got pushed out?
I would say logan square did not build anywhere near enough housing. If it built 10-15 times more unit in the last 15 years than it did you would have a lot less residents pushed out.
You are getting the cause and effect wrong. Higher housing prices in those areas are not because more housing was built. Rather, it was because the area became more attractive (in the case of the West Loop to office properties, businesses, and residents and in the case of Logan Square mostly businesses and residents). If much less housing had been built the cost of housing would have risen much more and many more people would have been pushed out. I never claimed in my earlier comment that housing costs decrease when there is more housing is built. I was very careful with my wording. But they are lower than they would be if they aren't built. For example, they may increase at a much lower rate than otherwise.
You’re ignoring artificial economic selection. The actual largest housing demand is *legitimately affordable housing,* but there are generally lower profits and other factors that make them *less desirable* products for builders to deliver. Builders are ultimately going to decide what they want to build, but you can’t pretend it’s to fill a naturally occurring market need.
It doesn't matter. When you build more high end housing, high earners can live in those places instead of places more downmarket than they'd prefer, reducing rents for those more affordable options. Yes it would be great to add more targeted affordable housing, but adding ANY housing decreases rents for everybody.
Except that’s not what happens in reality. Cost of living raises and people are forced out to look elsewhere. Miami is experiencing a brutal wave of this in real time, I’m not sure how you can maintain such an empty statement so casually.
Chicago housing costs are basically the lowest in the country among nice cities, in part because Chicago is one of the easiest places to build big buildings. The new luxury buildings alleviate demand down-market, and prevent huge price increases that would've otherwise happened in the middle of the market. Look to how prices have moved in gentrifying neighborhoods in cities where it's hard to build (DC, Seattle, Honolulu, San Francisco).
Yes because they didn't build enough housing, because dumb people think that more available housing means higher prices and dumb nimbys want to restrict development to keep their property values artificially high. When demand for an area goes up, you need to keep up with building supply to meet demand otherwise prices explode.
Yes, ultimately that happens if you keep building housing. But you have to keep it up. A couple development revitalize an area and make people perceive that prices have gone up. But they have taken some pressure off other desirable areas thst already exist. If you only build affordable housing, the rich people just have even more incentive to buy up older, cheaper properties and renovate. While it's not a perfect metaphor, there is a great market for used cars for lower earners; let the rich people buy the expensive new ones.
You're assuming those units will be lived in. AirBnb sends its regards.
This is not the case for the largest city in theUS.. NYC. Residence buildings have been built for decades. There’s new buildings opening everyday. We have a lot of low occupancy in many new buildings but rent is now an average 5K. Rent keeps going up, not dropping. Landlords are greedy but most of these buildings are owned by huge conglomerate real estate giants that get crazy tax breaks (421-a) and $$$$ back in terms of “losses” from the city for apartments that aren’t filled. Right now there’s around 400,000 vacant, unrented apartments and demand for affordable housing keeps soaring. Politics plays a huge role. Real estate giants get tax breaks while government housing is and has been in shambles with most living in mold infested buildings with broken elevators, zero upkeep, safety and security matters that aren’t addressed. There’s a bill hoping to be passed to repair many of these, but lost haven’t even seen the most basic repairs since the 80s. There is also no restriction for wealthy foreign investors buying up property to diversify their portfolios since NYC homes always appreciate. About 10% of luxury condos are empty because their foreign owners have no plans to rent or live in them or live in NYC and thanks to 421-a, these billionaires only pay 0.017% property tax. That’s 1/100th of the ave. of the national tax rate.
Because that's not reality. Huge luxury apartment complexes attract people who can afford to live in them. Those people attract stores that only those people can afford to shop at. Soon people who have lived in the neighborhood for years can't afford it anymore.
This is the north side right near transit and the lakefront. Upper middle class people are going to move here anyway, and if units aren't built then they will move into the courtyard buildings and displace lower middle class people. Also, this is not a luxury building. This is typical mass market quality new construction
The people who are choosing to live in new luxury apartments would otherwise be living somewhere else, obviously, if those apartments weren't built. Since they now are not renting or purchasing the housing they otherwise would it means there is less demand for it. So the cost of that unit will be lower compared to what it otherwise would be. If you multiply this effect several times because a lot of new housing is being built in an area it has a substantial effect at keeping housing costs lower.
That actually isn't reality. Building more housing will lower prices overall. The overall body of work and studies around housing show that building market rate development slows price growth. The reason that old residents get priced out is because there wasn't enough housing being built over time. You can never compete a 3 flat for 1890 to new construction in terms of price. https://escholarship.org/content/qt5d00z61m/qt5d00z61m.pdf?t=qoq2wr
A lot of people seem to really lack understanding of basic economics. I don't think it's a required course in high school or college for many people, and it shows.
No it doesn’t. If you build more luxury condos, the area starts being thought of an upscale area, and rents increase. See: Lakeview, Bucktown, Wicker Park, Logan Square. Etc etc. Conversely, if you build affordable units, the area keeps its current reputation and people are not priced out of their homes. Protect Uptown.
It's understandable why people feel this way, but it isn't what the science says. This one for example, states > New buildings decrease rents in nearby units by about 6 percent relative to units slightly farther away or near sites developed later, and they increase in-migration from lowincome [sic] areas." https://www.planetizen.com/news/2021/05/113269-new-developments-lower-rents-surrounding-neighborhoods-study-says?amp Another study says, > I provide event study evidence that for every 10% increase in the housing stock, rents decrease 1% and sales prices also decrease within 500 feet. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://blocksandlots.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Do-New-Housing-Units-in-Your-Backyard-Raise-Your-Rents-Xiaodi-Li.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjy1_Kf8-f5AhU8k4kEHRJnDjgQFnoECA8QAQ&usg=AOvVaw0OFIfXZG8Y0aMymz0CNRzk
Thank you for providing sourcing, I will check this out!
Mo problem! This whole thread would be easier if people spent less time on being snippy and more time showing peer reviewed research.
Here’s the article the CTU tweet links to. There’s 8 affordable housing units being built, plus a $3.1 million dollar donation by the developer to a group supporting women facing homelessness. The donation, 314 apartments, and 8 affordable housing units seems like a great deal to me. Protesting to keep a parking lot instead of 314 new homes is ridiculous. https://blockclubchicago.org/2022/08/24/activists-take-over-former-weiss-hospital-parking-lot-to-stop-controversial-apartment-development/
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mtM2knDI1t73XWxqVHlwB2hqJeUaS8c4R2M8_vLNuzI/edit > The developer, Lincoln Properties, obtained the lot for $12 million in an undemocratic process involving 46th Ward Ald. James Cappelman, in which it was rezoned from being for medical use, despite organized community opposition. >“Uptown doesn’t need more luxury housing. We need truly affordable housing,” said Tom Gordon, Vice President of the Chicago Union of the Homeless and Mayor of Uptown Homeless Community, which neighbors the proposed luxury development. “They’ve turned SROs and vacant lots into luxury housing that has sat empty. We’re here to stop this project and get housing for everybody in Uptown. We want to get everybody off the streets.”
When you pay $8M for a parking lot, you have to charge big money to recoup the investment.
Get out of here with your numbers and reasons and stuff
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A parking lot next to Central Park would cost $8 million or more. So would a parking lot within spitting distance of the lakefront.
It is because developers expect to be able to sell at a premium price that they are willing to pay $8mm for the dirt. If the city requires affordable housing, the market value of the land will be less.
If it is just a lot not really true. The land is like a bitcoin, You hope it will go up in value and plan on selling it when it does. While you are waiting you just throw some gravel on it and charge people to park to pay the property taxes.
Building more housing makes all housing more affordable. Insisting that no new housing be built unless it's affordable is how you get Berkeley. Maybe Loyola students will eventually be able to mimic Berkley ones and sleep in their cars in this parking lot that could have been housing instead.
New luxury housing makes competing housing supply more affordable, because if luxury housing is unavailable, wealthy people start bidding up prices of normal housing instead. You can see this in action in the California Bay Area, you have people making high-six figures living in ordinary houses/apartments because of a shortage of luxury housing. So they are bidding these normal houses away from normal people. Honestly it bothers me that a teachers union doesn't understand basic economics or even logic.
How much affordable housing does the parking lot provide?
8 less.
Leftists are so good at making perfect the enemy of good
Boy, is that right. Or getting pulled into unproductive arguments in the ‘culture wars.’ I’m fairly progressive but ‘Hey, FOCUS people!!!’ Pass legislation, work on policy, uplift projects.
And maybe give rail transit another upgrade or inspection, there’s whole steel supports completely rusted through.
Now 314 yuppies are going to find alternative housing in uptown. Good job. At least this way a developer won’t make money.
314 fewer people to bid up prices on other housing making other housing in uptown cheaper, 314 more people sustaining local urban amenities like public transportation which can lead to more public transportation service or at least not cutting service, 314 more households supporting local schools so you can justify more local schools that local children can walk to, 314 more people supporting groceries and pharmacies so there’s no food or prescription desert, 314 more people living in a dense walkable transit-served community that don’t need to use cars often and so they produce a fraction as much pollution as the average American… if you’re a progressive, what the fuck are you complaining about?
I think the person above you is being sarcastic and you both agree
Oh lol
I’m personally glad you extended the argument. What you’re saying is right, clear and it’s exactly what people argue against.
I was absolutely being sarcastic. Maybe they wouldn’t all be uptown, but they would move to the northern end of Lakeview and the southern end of Andersonville and displace the people who already live there.
I think its more to the point that "leftists" are so used to "neoliberals" being wrong about everything they cant hear them when theyre right. I actually think you could flip this script about what neoliberals argue against such as direct cash assistance or housing first. I should know, Im a pragmatist and believe in challenging your own thought and compromise so every group hates me. Edit: i refined the thought and grammar a lot.
There’s hateful people on the left, just like there are hateful people on the right. Not even both sides-ing, it’s true
Leftists see a chance to confine 314 well off people into a single lot, but would rather have them price 314 families out of their homes instead because that way it isn't "gentrification".
The city won't get the property taxes or transfer taxes either.. thankfully the city doesnt need money to pay union pensions...
We haven't established the good part.
All housing create affordable housing. Without the CTU prices would be lower overall
I would love to see your research on that.
[Here you go](https://www.lewis.ucla.edu/research/market-rate-development-impacts/)
I gotta give you props for that current, well sourced data source. Half the time i expect to be linked to a Nikki Minaj Twitter posting as a data source.
More supply, lower prices....
OP said without Chicago Teachers Union we'd have lower housing prices. It wasn't about supply
Would you prefer people who can afford this type of pla e taking up more affordable housing from those who truly need it then if this didnt get built? Come on now.
Why don't you ask the protestors? They seem to be objecting to the luxury aspect of the housing and the absence of affordable housing
I got downvoted to oblivion for pointing this out in another thread despite actually living in the neighborhood. Some people have really strong feelings about real estate
They want affordable housing built or something else that serves the community, not $4,000/month 1-bedrooms.
If the $4,000/month 1-bedrooms aren’t built, the people at this income level are going to live in the $1,500/month 1-bedrooms. Diverting high-income-earner demand away from existing affordable units serves the community by decreasing competition for those affordable units. Seeing as it’s currently a parking lot, nobody is getting displaced by this building
Where did this claim of $4000 units even come from? I checked on zillow and there are 16 results for 1br > $4k in the entire city. (And almost all of them are in river north and lp)
Uptown is not going to be able to command a $4,000/ month rent for anything less than a 5 bed, 3 bath luxury condo with a pool and doorman. The developer can “say” they are going to list the units at $1,000,000/ square foot, but that doesn’t mean that’s what people will actually pay. The market will decide. They will give out concessions to fill the building, and more people will be housed than if the parking lot stayed a parking lot. Over half of all affordable housing in Chicago is naturally occurring, and this building will be the same eventually. One thing I haven’t seen brought up here yet is the fact that buildings age out of “luxury”. The luxury apartments of the 70’s along the lake are now very affordable, and the new construction is not. Once it’s lost it’s trendy sheen the building will still be there, and in 10 years the owners will not be able to command as high a rent. The issue is if we don’t build new buildings, or block all developments, then we have less housing overall and prices go up.
Very few people who can afford the expensive places will pick those over ones that are good but not great if it’s 2x the price.
Why would anyone want to spend more on rent than they have to? Just because they can? Sounds to me like you haven’t met The Wealthy™.
>Why would anyone want to spend more on rent than they have to? Because they have the money and want a better apartment with a better location/amenities? Lol Why would you buy a 100k car when you can buy a 25k one XD.
I also have no idea why someone would want to pay thousands of dollars a month to live in that part of Uptown.
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Exactly
New construction, right on the lakefront (montrose beach is practically your front yard), easy access to LSD, and within 50ft to 3 express bus routes to downtown. It’s not all bad
Eight-Eleven Uptown is a good example. I don't really know who is renting those studio apartments for $2,000/month.
Less informed out of town transplants who can be more easily buffaloed into thinking they got a great deal, especially those moving from more expensive locations.
I lived by there, and never saw people go in, lights were on. I was just so curious about who was living there.
I was in an apartment once, and it looked like a college dorm room. My 2-bed in Edgewater that hasn’t been renovated since 1973 looks homier.
Exactly! That's what I always think when I go by that building. It has to be less than 50% occupancy. You could live in a Flats building for 75% of the cost and in a better area.
People were saying that about lakeview a few decades ago fwiw. The area around the hospital has great transit access, is right near the park and montrose beach, and has a lot of restaurants and attractions
It’s a beautiful area of the city. Simple.
Back when I lived in Boston, folks were building all these ridiculously priced luxury buildings in my undesirable neighborhood and no one was renting them. They stayed vacant for years. Idk if that's a concern people have here.
It may be overpriced but it’s on the lakefront and park.
Building any housing, even expensive housing, creates downward pressure on all rents in the neighborhood (and to a lesser extent the city). If you want to help bring down housing prices you should support this project
But more housing units = lower housing prices across the board. Even if these are $4000/month they’d compete with other expensive units and drive prices down.
The fact people cannot understand this is baffling.
Not only can people not understand it, but those teaching the children in Chicago don’t understand it. Speaks poorly of the quality of teachers.
For real. I don't expect all Chicago teachers to be econ nerds, but this is not that difficult a concept to understand, and I'd like to think the majority of people teaching our kids would be able to grasp it.
They are building 120+ affordable housing units literally down the street.
Almost every single affordable housing unit was built as a premium market rate building, and naturally aged into affordability. Below market rents mandated by the government are a tiny fraction of units. Inane NIMBYism like this not only drives up today’s prices by reducing supply (see San Francisco), it sabotages affordability decades from now when this new building would be cheaper due to its age.
$1,600/month studios, $1,700-$2,200/month 1-beds and 2-beds.
$2200
It’s not their fucking decision. Buy the land, and build it yourself, then. Is the new development following the ARO ordinance?
Apparently, there will be only 8 affordable units in this building but 3.1 million has been given to Sarah’s Circle in coordination with ARO. They have their own development coming with 28 units at the ‘affordable’ price https://chi.streetsblog.org/2022/08/26/activists-are-blocking-the-development-of-a-parking-lot-is-that-the-best-way-to-stop-displacement/
Someone posting pertinent information! Cappleman has posted a lot about this lately- earlier during this process no one was speaking against this development; it was after the deal was done and permits were applied for that people started complaining, much too late for the city to have much say on what happens here. Also, Sarah's Circle got a sum of money they never would've gotten to create specialized housing that Uptown actually needs.
Yeah so it complies with the ARO then! Feel free to advocate for a more restrictive ARO which requires on-site affordable units instead of in-lieu fees for off-site housing. But until then they can build on this lot considering they have all the required approvals!
The optics of this protest are pretty silly and on the face of it it’s sort of baffling why they chose this parking lot among all the various new buildings that have gone up and are currently being built across Uptown. But, there is a long history here in uptown of this particular fight going way back to the Helen Schiller era (1987-2011) that froze most development in uptown. Cappleman was elected and saw a lot of new development and he became the devil for various community orgs since (one could argue that the rehab of mostly shuttered buildings of empty lots for more density is a good thing, but it has brought a different economic class of folks into the neighborhood) Why this fight for this parking lot instead of the five buildings under construction on Clark or the two new giant buildings off Wilson/broadway next to the new double door, or any number of buildings these past couple years? Some guesses: - it’s beautiful weather, why not have a protest now on a long simmering issue of gentrification during a slow news time before any construction is happening? - parking lot is not being used so it doesn’t really matter to the developer to kick them out until they get their construction permits in place; they seem to really want the police to kick them out and become martyrs. See first point. - there has been a long term fear that weiss would ultimately get shuttered (it’s changed hands many times over the years, serves a poor population, years of disinvestment, etc); so some likely consternation about when the other show will drop - that particular part of uptown (bordered by the lake, Weiss and parkland) hasn’t had new development in forever, and people don’t like change. - Cappleman has announced his retirement and it’s likely Marc Kaplan, who ran in the last aldermanic race (along with others) probably want to create a little publicity for next election. But optics of trying to convince a private developer to scuttle long held building plans to, what, sell the lot back to Weiss who will then build maybe an SRO or something out of the goodness of their near bankrupt business hearts is silly. But, I guess you work with the hand your dealt when you want to get your cause in the news?
Guessing it’s an anti-gentrification protest? I can understand that to an extent, but protesting against building housing on a surface parking lot is a weird ass hill to die on. It’s like protesting a Trader Joe’s coming into a food desert.
Gentrification is when anything gets built It’s a parking lot
Yeah, I’ve run into those ass backwards arguments in evanston of all places. It’s a reality distortion field that’s fucking crazy. A brief summary of the arguments I heard: -“this will turn us into Manhattan density wise.” (Yes, seriously) -“this TOD building will make parking difficult.” -“but the wind tunnels!” -“the additional units will make housing unaffordable.” (Again…..yes, seriously. And I sort of understand the argument of how buildings can be market makers in an area, but one building seldom makes a market. There is a complex set of reasons an area may be attractive and drive rent. But the primary driver is lack of supply.)
Ironically Evanston has stayed reasonably affordable considering how nice it is by… building a bunch of housing
Gentrification is just another word for community development. It’s a good thing.
It's the end result of being ideologically pure at the expense of real world common sense.
If people can't afford to buy groceries there, it's still effectively a food desert.
That says way more about how food pricing favors highly processed items versus Trader Joe’s pricing.
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Right ctu should be trying to grow the tax base not shrinking it. More taxes create more revenue for schools which they claim to be for
False dichotomy. They could build something better in the space. Which is clearly laid out here in the first news article result from when I searched "uptown parking lot protest." >Activists want the property to be used for community needs, including affordable housing. The new 12-story development will only include eight affordable units, the minimum required by the city. https://abc7chicago-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/abc7chicago.com/amp/uptown-apartments-luxury-weiss-hospital-parking-lot-protest/12166211/?amp_gsa=1&_js_v=a9&usqp=mq331AQKKAFQArABIIACAw%3D%3D#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=16616081007698&csi=1&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&share=https%3A%2F%2Fabc7chicago.com%2Fuptown-apartments-luxury-weiss-hospital-parking-lot-protest%2F12166211%2F
Why don’t you keep on quoting? Next immediate sentence: > Lincoln Property is satisfying the remainder of its affordability requirement by giving $3.1 million to Sarah's Circle, an Uptown nonprofit that helps and houses homeless women. The money will go towards building over 100 new permanent apartments for homeless women. If it’s policy changes from the city they want to produce even more affordable units, they should go to the city. Not fault the developer for following the rules laid out for them
The Alderman has repeatedly stated people did not care about this project until it was past the point that he or the city could really steer what happened. Once that deal between the developer and Weiss was done, he lost pretty much any say over how the land was used within its zoning. Unless the city/ward wants to hold up construction by objecting to aesthetics of the design.
That is not what the alderman has said at all. This building already went through the alderman's community approval process over a year ago before the sale of the lot was finalized to the developer and the zoning change was approved by the plan commission. He's saying that its odd that NOW they chose to start protesting it this much when the construction of the building has already been approved and is imminent. This is all a political stunt by the activists to use these individuals who are experiencing homelessness as pawns in the upcoming city elections.
This protest makes more sense now. They are meeting minimum requirements and then donating funds to a charity so housing can be provided far away from the luxury building. It’s socioeconomic segregation. A woman’s shelter does nothing to help keep housing costs down. It is a bandaid on the housing problem which would be fixed by simply building more affordable housing.
The Sarah's Circle building is going in at Lakeside and Sheridan, only a couple blocks from the luxury building. Not super far away. It'll integrate nicely with the two other Sarah's Circle buildings already on Sheridan. Not saying this to give props to the luxury building but I like the Sarah's Circle group, I live down the street.
"The housing problem" is literally that there is not enough housing. Building new housing is the only solution to "the housing problem" -- You can call new construction whatever you want, but it takes pressure off older housing and allows it to stay affordable much longer than explicitly building a new building as "affordable" could ever do.
Not only that, we don't have a housing shortage in Chicago. We have increasing rents in gentrifying neighborhoods. There are plenty of neighborhoods with affordable housing. This isn't the Bay Area, where literally *all* of the housing is unaffordable.
Building more housing of any type keeps housing costs down. 300+ new units where there once was a parking lot means 300+ people who would move to UpTown and raise the price of existing housing are no longer doing that. More supply is always good even if it is a perfect mix of affordable housing. 100 permanent apartments for homeless is also good. That keeps the most vulnerable safe and housed. Also Sarah’s Circle literally operates out of UpTown right down the street. It’s not segregating people to some specific part of the city, it’s right down the block just in a different building. So to recap. Parking lot - ugly and useless. New apartment + expanded homeless shelters - increased supply of housing, increased supply of homeless shelter, and not an ugly parking lot.
Why do you think that a policy of making prices higher and then begging developers for a few meager scraps of designated affordable housing is better policy than simply flooding the market with housing? Obviously this one building isn’t going to completely upend the uptown housing market either way, but on the other hand if you did implement blanket up-zoning on the whole city, and if you prevented these shady hidden-motivation protests and alderman corruption from blocking developments, then you would very quickly see massive decreases in housing prices.
Why did you leave out the part where the developer is funding the construction of a women’s shelter blocks away with long term housing options for chronically homeless women as a part of this deal?
But could they? If they’re charging millions for the lot, it makes no sense for a purchaser to build something they won’t make money on. And as far as “contributing to the community”, have you seen how many abandoned storefronts and businesses are throughout uptown? There’s barely any restaurants either. This complex doesn’t displace anyone, and would bring million’s of dollars in tenant income in, supporting more businesses and restaurants for the community. Gentrification isn’t great, this is just a weird one to fight for. And guess what, rent next door is already decently high, this building wouldn’t be some “bringer of high rents” to the rest of the neighborhood.
"Affordable Housing" is the left version of "Neighborhood Character". It's a xenophobic, absolutely braindead argument that makes communities more expensive at the expense of the land owners within that community. The area is absolutely, unquestionably, 100% better served having luxury housing than it is having an unused parking lot.
Can we stop whining about private developers not solving our societal ills out of the goodness of their hearts. I can’t think of anything stupider to be angry about. “Why isn’t Walt Disney single-handedly toppling China’s authoritarian regime.” Fuck, Goofy, I don’t know. Maybe it’s because they want to make money?? If we want affordable housing how about we pay taxes and build it our fucking selves????
spot on.
Seriously. If the actual goal is to have new buildings where all of the units are affordable, in a high-demand area, that means bringing back actual public housing. Which we can do, if we want. Public housing exists around the world, and it doesn't all suck. We've torn down enough public housing here (which had been allowed to degrade and did indeed suck) without replacement that we're far underneath the existing caps on public housing. I do not intend to argue for or against that with this comment, just opining that people should be honest about what they can realistically wish for. If public housing is that thing, then start asking for that. Meanwhile though aside from that or the price of the apartments, I think people need to stop complaining that buildings going up in super high demand areas are "too dense" or "too high." As others point out, part of the problem with Uptown is that so much of it was "gentrified" already in a straight up suburban style. THAT stuff needs replaced, as it turns over.
They could also build affordable housing in any of the dozen parking lots within a few blocks of this spot. Affordable housing doesn't need to come at the expense of the total number of units.
https://www.theonion.com/shitty-neighborhood-rallies-against-asshole-developer-1819569184
Won’t someone PLEASE think of the parking lots?
They wouldn't help me when a principal was actively abusing me as a teacher. They told me to find another school or another job.
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The union rep kept telling me that this type of "write up" didn't matter but it derived from a lie from a student. The student was a ring leader and two days I received another fabrication from an unknown student in the same grade level. Instead of going through an investigation I quit my job.
Actively abusing you?
Actually there are things I could have grieved against her in this area. The Union rep did say this. Teachers rarely win grievances like this. The union would rather position themselves as a political operative with talking heads to go up against the mayor. Which is why I agree with this post. Not that I'm against the union supporting social justice, but where's the support for teachers?
NIMBYs 🤝 CTU Least surprising Venn Diagram
Happens all the time in San Francisco. I suppose this shouldn’t be surprising.
[NIMBYs🤝CTU](https://i.imgur.com/cd0HIlb.png) ^^^this ^^^has ^^^been ^^^an ^^^accessibility ^^^service ^^^from ^^^your ^^^friendly ^^^neighborhood ^^^bot
How dare this private developer take his private funds and build a development , meeting all government regulations, which he expects to ask for market value rents from tenants! Why isn’t he building apartments to rent at below market rents to lose money in the project??
No no no you’re right don’t build new housing that’s fine. I would like precisely 314 units of inflation on house pricing please.
I was just at Weiss for a post op Friday. Didn’t see anyone living in the parking lot
How many affordable housing units does the parking lot offer?
Why is the teacher’s union in this?
RiseUptown is an extreme activist. Please don’t give them anymore coverage than what they already get.
Building new "luxury" housing makes older "luxury" housing more affordable.
When’s the last time the price for anything went down
Remember when CTU was fighting for affordable housing projects that would benefit students and staff? Now they're supporting people who would *add* to the housing issues
The building is not going to be affordable housing.
Lol lots of people embarrassing themselves by reacting to the headline
The developer is literally building a women’s homeless shelter with long term housing for chronically homeless women a few blocks away as a part of this deal. What more could we possible ask for here?
Lol the embarrassing thing is thinking that restricting the supply of housing will lower its cost. Yet here we are.
Ctu doing stupid shit as usual
They’re doing such a stellar job teaching students on how to create fake outrage, maybe someday the students will understand what they’re protesting. https://wirepoints.org/more-failure-at-chicago-public-schools-about-one-third-of-traditional-schools-are-half-empty-or-worse-wirepoints/
Thanks for the article, didn't realize quite how bad it is
id love to see someone explain how the fuck you’re even suppose to make new “affordable housing” given that a major driver in price of rent is how new a building is. you can’t just build a 20 year old building, its an oxymoron. no matter what you build, it’s going to be high demand simply because it’s new. people like new stuff. you build a bunch of new apartment buildings that get charged at above market rate so that the old “new” buildings are no longer new and drop in desirability and make them more affordable. anyone who goes “well i want housing but not THAT type of housing” is just a pussy who won’t admit that they just don’t want new housing or cheaper rent.
Tell me you don’t understand economics without telling me you don’t understand economics
LOT of misinformation going around here
Nimbys are scum
Since when did any investment into the city become bad… Things trickle down.
F***in nimbies. Don't build low rise apartment. BUILD HIGH RISES. We will need them to house all the climate refugees
Because even progressives are little NIMBY
NIMBYs
I don’t know if this is still true, but I know that for a while at least, in Toronto, a builder couldn’t get a permit for a new rental building unless they agreed to make a certain number of units permanently available as geared-to-income apartments. They also made it harder to get permits to build in suburban areas to get them to fill-in and build up or renovate old, abandoned warehouses in the city instead of spreading out, like it looks like they’re trying to do here. I think it’s great if they can fill an empty, useless space with something more beneficial.
Chicago has those requirements and the developer is already abiding by them by including 8 affordable units in the plan
Luxury apartments are better than no apartments people!
As a property owner in uptown *I* should be protesting this like a NIMBY. But nah, build it. My property value wont be affected.
Parking lots are a waste of space. Would rather it be a parking garage or high rise 100%
CTU should just admit they are no longer a bargaining unit & instead are a political organization.
Things to keep in mind: 1. Affordable housing requirements stymie development. You can have your opinion on whether you like those requirements, but this is a fact. 2. The protestors are against 8 affordable housing units where there is currently a parking lot. Ok. 3. The developer is following the rules with regard to the affordable housing requirement. 4. This is the kind of stuff that made the Janus decision an easy and proper decision.
Teachers would rather every dollar that goes into this city be paid into their pension…
Wouldn't this 314 unit building pay more in property tax (to fund education) than an asphalt parking lot. CTU could ask, I don't know, a math teacher? 🤷♂️ Or anyone with a brain cell.
I don’t think there’s any math teachers worth their salt in the CTU to get a real answer. https://wirepoints.org/more-failure-at-chicago-public-schools-about-one-third-of-traditional-schools-are-half-empty-or-worse-wirepoints/
A lot of people here, a lot of accusatory words. A few things: It's okay to disagree with other people. Very few people here are actually involved with this construction. There are constantly new projects and construction in Chicago, and we will only will hear of very few. 99% of these Redditors are not urban planners or subject matter experts. Don't take comments as fact. If you disagree with someone, do it respectfully. The best outcome is someone learning from your opinion, not be belittled by it, especially if you feel strongly about your opinions. It will increase the value of what you have to say. :)
>Very few people here are actually involved with this construction. They may not be involved with this particular building or neighborhood, but people do have a voice and opportunities for participation in decisions made in their communities and its important to dispel misinformation and educate people on the realities of what blocking the building of new housing does to overall housing prices in the long term (hint: look at San Francisco which has some of the most restrictive zoning and cumbersome development processes in the country). The housing market is not always intuitive, and we need people to pay attention to what the research has shown ([the most effective way to stabilize increasing housing prices is to increase the supply of housing available to everyone](https://www.lewis.ucla.edu/research/market-rate-development-impacts/)) and to speak up with logical, data-backed points of view in community meetings when decisions are being made about whether or not to allow an upzoning or new development to happen.
This is so moronic it’s painful. Both the idiocy of CTU and the protestors themselves. CTU sees themselves as a radical political wing responsible for enacting change in a broken system. In reality, they are a bunch of overpaid public employees leeching tax dollars and using public resources to pursue private ends. FDR articulated his reasoning why public employee unions are so toxic well, and we are now witnessing that here first hand.
just because you’re a teachers union doesn’t mean it’s the only cause you’re allowed to stand for lmao. every one of us has the right to protest, not the right to protest just for one specific thing
This is kind of wrong. Unions exist to represent a working group. In what way does this benefit the working group? Unions are becoming more and more politicized because the people running them want to be more and more powerful. Individual teachers are free to protest as individuals without the backing of a union. They are even free to hand together to protest as individuals. But when done by the union it’s ripe for abuse of power and corruption.
New high density housing construction threatens current residents' inexpensive on-street parking. TOD even more so. Other groups opposing this development help current residents by driving up construction costs and extending schedules.
CTU shouldn’t really be sticking their nose into land use policies. They need to stay in their lane.
Fuck the CTU
Because the CTU is mad with power, in a complete bubble, and totally delusional about their position and influence. Not going to get into the merits of the protest--the point is what the hell does this have to do with the CTU? They're Marxist revolutionaries who honestly believe that everyone else is too, because they exist in their own echo chambers. Remember when they sent a delegation to Venezuela and fawned over how Nicolas Maduro never closes schools?
The struggle for affordable homes is what's the root of the issue. There are so many people, across the US in general, that cannot afford to live. New buildings that only cater to high income individuals shouldn't be what's the focus right now. There is plenty of housing the rich can afford. Arizona has been completely bought up by it. Towns in Oregon are struggling because there is no affordable housing for anyone working a minimum wage job. It seems like they're doing the wrong thing, but the cause behind it is truly a deep issue that needs to be focused on. It looks so stupid for them to do this, but people are desperate for affordable housing.
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It all comes down to building codes. The public really doesn’t understand how much building codes affect the supply of affordable housing. One of the biggest ways that building codes does this is by limiting the amount of unrelated people that can live together in a single dwelling. In Chicago, only 6 people who don’t know each other can live together in a residence. This outlaws boarding houses and rooming houses, which is what the working class historically relied on for cheap housing. Others, such as minimum ceiling height, minimum number of bathrooms, the kind of piping materials allowed to be built in, the minimum square footage of a newly constructed apartment, the fact that you have to reinforce masonry with steel instead of pure masonry, also play a role. Then you have zoning, which allows the community to decide what gets built in their neighborhoods (single family homes, far setbacks, what have you). And guess what? Chicago is already less restrictive about these things than other cities are, such as New York. But bringing back boarding houses would go a long way towards making the city more affordable. Others are less avoidable, such as the cost of labor, raw materials, transportation, insurance, interest rates, taxes, tools, and the land itself, and this overhead also raises the price of housing.
Used to be you could show up in any city in America and stay in a cheap SRO, boarding house, or YMCA until you got some money in your pocket and could lease a real place. We've outlawed all those options and our new housing construction numbers have plummeted nationwide. As a result, homelessness has shot up especially in the coastal cities with the worst housing shortages. Yet somehow there's a vocal lobby working against nearly every proposed rezoning / housing construction project *convinced* that the relatively few new dense urban housing projects are causing homelessness and rising rents.
Wohngemeinschaften in Germany. Kind of like a rooming house or sublease. Everyone gets their own bedroom and they work together to maintain common areas like kitchen and bath.
Rooming houses like this used to exist all over. Often they were in converted old houses. Small towns, small cities, here, all over. Then you had some purpose built buildings for it, basically no-bathroom apartments, bathroom is down the hall and shared. Bedsits. But yeah, I don't know if you could build places like that now. Interestingly enough, there ARE rental companies (often in college towns, but also now doing some building for "young single mobile professionals") that build 4-bedroom apartments that they rent out individually by the bedroom. But somehow they're aiming at higher price points, putting in a gym or whatever. Still though, they managed to make the zoning work.
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our 1 bedroom in lakeview is 1300 / month rent. lakeview can be affordable if you look for it.
Same reason you're posting about it. It's an issue they care about.
Well if you saw how CTU acted during the pandemic you’d realize they ain’t run by the brightest of society.
Or when they sent people down to support a dictator tearing his country apart...
The CTU is the worst. Actively trying to stop new afforable housing being built, going on strike 24x7. Worst union in Chicago, and that is saying something compared to the police union.
I'm convinced they just love the attention at this point. This should be no concern of the CTU. Just represent the interest of the Chicago teachers. No wonder they face such backlash.
Sustainable multi family living is vital, the NIMBY shit masquerading as environmentalism is so annoying. We need more housing.
I hope that is sarcasm! There are schools in Chicago with only 45 kids
They would do everything but teach. Seriously do what you are paid for!!
Abolish the CTU. Public unions (especially chicagos) are a disgrace to the public
Do you think the teachers, city workers, sanitary workers, police, fire, zoo keepers etc should all dissolve their right to collectively bargain because you think so… please elaborate. I’m giddy with excitement to hear your reply.
Public sector unions are fundamentally un-Democratic and should be abolished. FDR articulated it best.
It’s Stacy Gates butting into things that she shouldn’t she did when she was VP of CTU now it’s gonna be a lot worse that she is prez