Carriage houses could be making a comeback in some of Chicago’s affluent suburbs.
With a Friday deadline for plans to produce more affordable housing in wealthy suburbs, towns have floated ideas such as adding coach houses to multimillion-dollar mansions in an attempt to boost their percentages of moderately priced homes.
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But some affluent communities remain indignant at the idea that a new state law pushes them to add affordable housing where the market dictates otherwise.
“We’ve prided ourselves as a high-end, low-density community,” said Burr Ridge Village Administrator Steven Stricker. “It’s not natural for [affordable housing] to be here.”
The intent of the affordable housing law, passed by the state legislature in 2003, is to create more housing that allows people like teachers, police officers and nurses to live in the communities where they work, cutting down on traffic congestion and sprawl.
The law requires villages with little affordable housing–10 percent of the community’s housing stock is the cutoff–to turn in plans that spell out how they intend to boost their percentage. If not, they could be subject to a state affordable housing board that can override local zoning decisions starting in 2009.
According to the state, 49 municipalities in Illinois were under the 10 percent minimum.
The law has provoked a mix of reactions, with many village officers openly criticizing it or even disputing whether it applies to them.
Citing home-rule status or taking issue with the state’s formula, some are not turning in a plan.
In some affected towns, such as Highland Park, officials had recognized affordable housing was an issue and already were working on plans.
Other municipalities begrudgingly have submitted plans but also are pushing for legislators to change or kill the law.
Deerfield Village Manager Bob Franz says village officials believe in the concept of affordable housing but plan to deal with the issue on their own time frame. They are not submitting a plan.
“It’s protecting our home-rule rights,” Franz said. “If we don’t stand firm with this, the General Assembly may think they can do anything else.”
And though Northbrook officials said they believe their home-rule status exempts the village, they have put together a plan. Community planning director Tom Poupard said the law prompted some good conversations.
“We needed to start talking about it,” he said.
Advocates say villages can create affordable housing without spending tax dollars and that the term does not mean that a low-income family gets to move into a mansion at a reduced cost.
Some villages are considering requiring new subdivisions, condominium developments or major rehab projects to include a percentage of smaller, affordable units. In exchange for developers’ cooperation, officials could allow for higher density so the builder could sell more units.
Instead of making it a requirement, villages also can encourage such an arrangement in their negotiations with developers, advocates said.
“These towns negotiate with developers all the time over parkland, architectural issues, school impact fees,” said Nick Brunick, director of the regional affordable housing initiative at the not-for-profit Business and Professional People for the Public Interest.
Pointing to affluent suburbs near Boston where land costs are higher than in the Chicago area, Brunick said, “if communities decide they want to do it, they can.”
The Illinois Housing Development Authority counts homes valued at about $160,000 as meeting affordable standards for a family of four, officials said.
Federal and state programs offer some funding and tax credits for affordable housing, and some towns have plans that call for making better use of the programs. Other tools that towns are considering include setting up trusts, which allows a community to own land, and its cost is not added to the house price.
In McHenry County, the fast-growing village of Spring Grove wrote a plan to meet the 10 percent threshold by working with developers to include affordable housing units in a subdivision currently in the works, officials said.
In Tower Lakes, where homes can easily go for more than $500,000, Village President Leonard J. Kuskowski said the village submitted a plan, but officials remain skeptical about the law.
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“We applaud the idea behind it, but I just don’t see any way we can do anything positive,” he said. “We are not going to go buy houses at $350,000 and sell them to somebody for $100,000.”
Burr Ridge still is working on its plan, but some officials argue that the state could take a more regional look at the problem, because affordable housing exists outside their boundaries, Stricker said. Within the boundaries, land values and housing demand don’t encourage affordable housing, he said.
Just the other day, a developer came in to talk about his plans to build a home in the $2 million to $2.5 million range, Stricker said. “That’s the market today,” he said.