606 demolition ordinance moves forward after changes, while Andersonville downzoning is rejected

David Zegeye is a graduate student at the University of Chicago, and an astrophysicist with a passion for Chicago. @DavidZegeye

Chicago’s Bloomingdale Trail, part of The 606, is an elevated park connecting neighborhoods across the city’s West and Northwest Side. The trail was developed from an abandoned railroad line that ran through Humboldt Park, Logan Square, Bucktown, and Wicker Park. While rails-to-trails parks in other cities have been predominantly built in wealthy, white neighborhoods, The 606 connects many economically and racially diverse neighborhoods. That residents from different areas of the city can enjoy the benefits of the trail was one of the factors that helped make The 606 so popular when opening in 2015.

However, The 606’s popularity has also contributed to a significant rise in housing prices around the trail. Although The 606 is not solely responsible for the steep increases in housing costs, many long-time residents are being displaced because they can no longer afford the higher rents and property taxes in the area.

The first anti-demolition ordinance

To address concerns of displacement along The 606, Ald. Roberto Maldonado (26th), Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35th), and former Ald. Joe Moreno (1st) proposed an ordinance in 2017 to raise the demolition fee for residential properties along the 606 Residential Area and charge a fee for any multi-family buildings that are converted to single-family homes (SFHs). (Currently, there is a nominal fee for demolition permits of $500, or $1,000 if architectural drawings are required to be reviewed.)

The raised demolition fees would make it more expensive to tear down multi-unit buildings and could discourage the construction of build single-family homes in their place. Such teardowns have resulted in the loss of many buildings that provided affordable rents to the neighborhood, in favor of expensive SFHs, along many nearby neighborhoods. The deconversion fee would address similar concerns for multi-family buildings that are renovated and converted to SFHs.

Out of the community areas that the 606 intersects, Logan Square has had the most demolitions and teardowns since 2009. Teardowns peaked after the 606 opened, whereas other community areas peaked earlier.

Jennie Fronczak, director of development at LUCHA, an affordable housing developer, said “Demolitions mean less stability for children in our community who are displaced from their homes and their schools. Demolitions are literally tearing our community apart as they separate multi-generational support networks which allow working families to weather life’s challenges.”

The new anti-demolition ordinance

Although the ordinance never got passed, Ald. Maldonado and Ald. Ramirez-Rosa proposed a new ordinance last month (O2019–9439) intended to address concerns of displacement. Ald. Daniel La Spata (1st) expressed interest in crafting the ordinance but is not one of the co-sponsors.

This ordinance differs from the previous one in several ways. First, the current ordinance would no longer raise demolition fees and instead would block any demolition permits for residential properties altogether, with the exception of emergency demolition permits being granted. In fact, all building permits for residential properties would be blocked.

Deconversion fees were also removed, meaning a property owner could still reduce the number of units in a multi-family building without paying a fee. The new ordinance disallows rezonings of any residential properties in the 606 Residential Area, from February 1, 2020 to March 31st, 2021. Commercial properties would be exempt from this ordinance, which are most of the properties on main neighborhood corridors such as Milwaukee Avenue and North Avenue.

Most of the area is zoned RS-3 (58 percent), which only allows new construction housing to be only single-family houses. There are some RT-4 zones (eight percent) which allows up to three-unit buildings. There are 52 other zoning districts that share the remaining 34 percent of land area in the ordinance’s pilot area.

Zoning rules and the way they’re geographically and spottily distributed in Chicago are one complication to building new and reusing housing. For example, and this gets very specific, two-flats in RS zones that were deconverted to single family are not allowed to convert back unless they’re 50 years old or older and there’s proof they were a legal two-flat in the past. Obtaining a zoning change could alleviate that and Ald. Ramirez-Rosa has done this for individual homeowners a couple of times, at least.

Although the ordinance would last fourteen months, landlords may want short-term economic gains to offset any potential loss in profits from lack of zoning changes. The reason why multi-family buildings on the North Side have been torn down for pricey SFHs, said by Mario Greco, a broker affiliated with Berkshire Hathaway, is because “the demand for new-construction homes is high enough that it makes financial sense to tear down what is a perfectly functioning building and put up a brand-new replacement” (Crain’s Chicago).

If the ordinance was in effect, instead of demolishing them, the pace of multi-family building deconversions may be accelerated in order to produce more highly-demanded SFHs, which would reduce the affordable housing stock in the area. Zoning rules don’t allow SFHs to be converted to multi-family buildings to offset the loss in overall units without lot-by-lot zoning changes, thus more people in the area could be displaced. This was part of the reason why the original ordinance had a deconversion fee.

A question of legality

The ordinance says the 26th Ward will commission and publish a study, by January 15, 2021, of various factors that lead to housing instability in the 606 Residential Area. The Residential Area would act as an experiment to see how rents and home prices are affected in a gentrifying neighborhood when demolitions and zoning changes are prohibited for more than a year, and many of the existing buildings are non-conforming properties. If the lack of zoning changes and demolitions add to housing instability, then the study should be able to identify this in any rental and housing price changes over the course of the study.

Since Chicago’s Department of Housing (DOH) has been tasked by the mayor to gather ways of preserving and creating affordable housing in the city, Ramirez-Rosa believes the results of the 606 Residential Area study could be used to inform future policy decisions. However, Mayor Lori Lightfoot is hesitant about the ordinance, citing legality issues with preventing demolitions for homes in the residential area. After speaking with the mayor’s office Ald. Ramirez-Rosa says the ordinance needs “a few minor changes” on language. Ald. Harry Osterman (48th), chair of the Committee on Housing and Real Estate, says he will “absolutely” call the ordinance for a vote at a zoning meeting on January 14th, after changes are made. The ordinance could possibly be voted on in the January 15th city council meeting.

Other strategies

Unfortunately, the loss of multi-family buildings has been a large part of the North Side’s history. To address this, some residents in Andersonville proposed downzoning a stretch of the neighborhood, which would be intended to prevent the demolition 2- to 4-flats in the neighborhood, and, to some, prevent the construction of “too large” single- and multil-family houses.

Although many of the residents wanted to prevent the demolition of these buildings, preserving the neighborhood’s affordability was not explicitly a goal of this initiative. As such, Ald. Matt Martin (47th) rejected the proposal.

For much of the North Side’s history, downzonings have not prevented and often accelerated, the demolition of Chicago’s affordable housing stock. According to a report published last year titled A City Fragmented, Lincoln Park is responsible for 18% of the residential downzonings in the city since 1970, which has coincided with the loss of 25% of its population since 1960 and rent is one of the highest in the city.

The loss has worsened as multi-family buildings are deconverted to expensive SFHs, which now makes up a sizable portion of the residential zoning. As a result of downzonings in Lincoln Park and neighboring Lakeview “since 1970, the community areas have lost 25% of their rental housing stock and the percentage of affordable units of any size has decline from nearly 50% to an estimated 12%”.

Although downzoning will not preserve affordability and the building stock of Andersonville, Ald. Martin cited several initiatives to bring affordability to the neighborhood, such as re-legalizing accessory dwelling units (ADUs). ADUs can include basement units and coach houses, which have historically been a part of the city’s housing stock. Some of the Andersonville residents cited wanting to preserve the neighborhood’s character as the reason to ask for downzoning — this is also an argument that’s been used repeatedly in cities to justify a neighborhood’s exclusivity.

Since ADUs have the potential to be rented at affordable prices without altering the neighborhood’s appearance, they can be a part of the solution. Similar to iterations of the 606 Residential Area ordinance, Ald. Martin mentions raising demolition fees and changing the zoning code to limit the deconversion and teardowns of Chicago’s multi-family buildings.

Although these individual proposals — the demolition moratorium and the Andersonville downzoning request — may seem isolated, they are connected to the systematic loss of the city’s 2- to 4-flat housing stock. The loss of these affordable housing options on the North Side is due to rising land values, and are exacerbated by the city’s current zoning code. Until there is a structural change in the city’s land-use policy to address affordability for neighborhoods, “piecemeal” ordinances are the only option for residents and alderfolks to affect local housing, which by themselves may improve or worsen affordable housing options.

606 demolition ordinance moves forward after changes, while Andersonville downzoning is rejected was originally published in Chicago Cityscape on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.