A zoning advisory committee in the 41st Ward rejected a proposal from Troy Realty to build 30 condos and 159 parking spaces next to the Edison Park Metra commuter train station. Alder Anthony Napolitano will reject the zoning change request on behalf of the advisory committee.
Jay Koziarz wrote in Curbed Chicago “based on the outcry over 30 condos and a primarily public parking garage, it wouldn’t be surprising to see future proposals stick to the site’s existing zoning and bypass the community zoning process altogether.”
The site at 6655 N. Oliphant Ave. is on two parcels totaling about 35,800 square feet and both are zoned M1–1. A car wash stands on part of the site now. The site is in a Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) area and has no minimum parking requirement.
An M1–1 zoning district doesn’t allow much. It’s probably the most restrictive zoning class there is, save for the RS (single-family housing) and RT (single and two-flat housing) classes.
The only residential M1–1 allows is an overnight or transitional shelter.
Here are other things that Troy Realty could build on the site without permission from an advisory committee or alder and still earn money (because of the site’s low density maximum, only a couple of these things could be built):
- Day care
- Animal shelter, veterinarian’s office, or horse stables
- A very limited array of businesses, including copying and printing, a trade school, a temp employment agency, clothing repair or laundromat, and a bank
- An indoor farm
- Restaurant, bar, and event venue
- Grocery store
- Offices, including doctor and urgent care
- Self-storage building
- A strip mall of retail stores
- Car repair and vehicle storage
- Class I recycling facility
- Some manufacturing uses, warehousing, and freight movement
- Cellphone tower
Some of these uses sound a lot less appealing than welcoming 30 new families in the neighborhood.
What from this list do you think should be built here?