In today’s Chicago, affordable housing has become a synonym for government mandate, as if the market were systemically incapable of producing homes for working people at reasonable prices. This is, of course, nonsense. Developers do better when they respond to demand.
So we’re on board with the recent statement by a group calling itself Urban Environmentalists, which advocates for smart city development. The Illinois chapter of this national nonprofit called on Mayor Brandon Johnson to focus anew on the City Council’s Committee on Zoning, Landmarks and Building Standards. Problematic Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa stepped down as chairman of the panel last Friday.
What does Urban Environmentalists want? Practical change. “Reforming zoning regulations can cut through red tape, lower building costs, and accelerate transit-oriented development in areas where people want to live,” the group says.
Agreed.
More specifically, the group wants to see a renaissance of the historic Chicago three-flat, a familiar sight to all Chicagoans but a practical form of multifamily development that runs counter to the zoning in many of the neighborhoods where people most want to live. It’s also promoting so-called accessory dwelling units, commonly known as coach houses although they can sometimes take different forms, such as basement conversions.
Advocates have been pushing these ideas for some time, including in our Opinion section, and they have had some political success. These ideas interest us because they’re a way to create market-based affordable housing — and potentially more effective than shaking down developers of high-end apartments who’d rather fork over cash than mess up their plans.
If three-flats made a comeback in desirable neighborhoods around town, they’d be more affordable than single-family homes and, while ADUs have their drawbacks, they can help Chicagoans who need more room or who want to take care of elderly relatives. And, of course, increased density helps with public safety, provides more customers for local retail and restaurants and encourages the use of public transit.
The Johnson administration expressed support for these ideas in its transition plan. We weren’t on board with much in that plan. But we are with this.
The impediment? Endless and confounding zoning regulations, permitting and red tape that adds to the cost of the housing, which in turn is passed on to residents. Of course, all those permits and requisite approvals also delay construction and do nothing for people who need housing now. And there are lots of those folks.
More three-flats and ADUs won’t solve everything. The Chicago Housing Authority, which is sitting on a lot of vacant properties, needs to prioritize rehabbing its inventory and bringing those homes back on line. It behooves the city, too, to make it easier for developers to build housing of all kinds, not throw obstacles like a massive increase in the real-estate transfer tax in their way.
But we’d argue that even NIMBY-inclined single-family homeowners on posh streets can see benefits from quality new housing with smaller footprints, as distinct from living next to crumbling buildings in drastic need of renovation. New three-flats and ADUs attract the kind of educated young people this city needs, especially in communities like the South Loop and Bronzeville. Generational diversity is one of the attractions of urban living. Alas, few make that case to those wealthier homeowners, who then fall into self-protection mode.
The time has come to make it easier for developers to build affordable housing while still making a fair profit. So, given that it’s now a new day on the Zoning Committee, how about directing the new chair to find ways to free the market to do what history teaches us it does far better than government?
Build new homes.
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