Work on Park Ridge’s new comprehensive plan, a blueprint for future planning, is on hold amid the loss of two key city staff members involved in the project and reported disagreements over whether certain options for more affordable housing should be included in the plan.
Both Jim Brown, the city’s director of community preservation and development, and John Carlisle, the city’s senior planner, have left their positions within the past few weeks.
Both had been working with Teska Associates to develop a new comprehensive plan for the city. Work began more than two years ago.
Brown, who declined to comment publicly on his leaving the city, did state that there were disagreements on affordable housing between himself and Jim Argionis, the chairman of the city’s planning and zoning commission.
Brown said he felt Argionis was attempting to make changes to the affordable housing options in the comprehensive plan without a majority vote from the entire planning and zoning commission. Brown, who was recommending smaller, more affordable housing options in Park Ridge, said he declined to make changes to the plan because the commission had not formally directed staff to do so.
Argionis denied that he is opposed to affordable housing or that he wanted to remove certain proposals from the plan without the direction of the commission.
He said the commission was receiving drafts from staff that were “not in line with what the council or commission had talked about,” and that he was simply following “guidance” that he believed was provided by the City Council last year in regards to some of the proposals included in the plan.
“Ultimately, we are discussing things at the commission and we are going to discuss them again,” Argionis said this month.
Commissioner Rebecca Mills disputed Argionis’ claim that he was not trying to change housing proposals without the direction from the commission. In a June 1 letter to the mayor and City Council, which she shared with the Park Ridge Herald-Advocate, Mills wrote that staff had been given direction from Argionis without approval of the commission.
“Before we resume work on the plan, I suggest a robust discussion regarding protocols and proper roles in this planning process,” Mills wrote. “Losing two key staff members who were working on this plan certainly impacts any momentum that we had as we were closing in on the final draft.”
Dozens of emails obtained by a Park Ridge resident through a Freedom of Information Act request and shared with the Park Ridge Herald-Advocate also show that Argionis engaged in extensive conversation with city staff members about the housing chapter in the comprehensive plan. Emails written by Argionis question the inclusion of specific details, offer opinions, and disagree with revisions to the plan, particularly the continued inclusion of accessory dwelling units as smaller housing options.
The revised proposal that appeared before the planning and zoning commission in April — the last time the plan was discussed — “eliminate[d] many references to affordable housing,” Brown wrote in a memo to the planning and zoning commission. Also removed were references to a state statute requiring municipalities to submit plans for providing affordable housing and meet a target of 10% affordable housing stock.
Some Park Ridge officials have argued that because the city has home rule authority, it does not have to follow the statute.
The section on affordable housing that remains in the comprehensive plan defines affordable housing as “housing on which the occupant is paying no more than 30% of gross income for housing costs.” It states that the city currently encourages affordable housing by considering it as a “public benefit” if a developer, who is seeking exceptions to the zoning ordinance, agrees to set aside 20% of multi-family units as affordable.
No developers of multi-family housing have made such proposals in recent years.
Still in the plan is a proposal to allow accessory dwelling units, defined as “coach houses” or smaller, self-contained dwellings on the same property as a main house; and two-unit housing, such as duplexes and two-flats.
Argionis said encouraging developers to build lower-cost multi-family units can be difficult in Park Ridge because land prices are so expensive. Other communities, he added, have referenced affordable housing outside of their comprehensive planning documents.
“I think ultimately we just need a full understanding of where we are with affordable housing and what other towns have done,” Argionis told the Park Ridge Herald-Advocate.
Mayor Marty Maloney acknowledged there have been “differences of opinion” in regards to the housing chapter, but said the process for completing the document will continue.
More Top Picks Beauty And Personal Care
“I remain confident we will work through it and get to a completed product, but right now it’s on hold,” he said.
Nan Parson of Action Ridge, a social justice group in Park Ridge, said members of the group have been advocating for Park Ridge to adopt affordable housing plans, but do not feel there is adequate support from the planning and zoning commission and City Council.
“People should be able to find housing where they wish to live so they are not spending more than 30% of their income on housing,” Parson said. “There are ways to make that possible.”
When discussion of the comprehensive plan’s housing chapter will resume is unclear. City Manager Joe Gilmore said the city is in the process of recruiting a new director of community preservation and development to succeed Brown.