When developers approach Park Ridge with potential housing projects, there is a list of public amenities the city would like to see as part of those projects.
The list isn’t a legal requirement. Nobody is forced to, for example, provide public parking as part of a proposal. However, by agreeing add some amenities—by agreeing to improve the community—the developers get a better shot at approvals on requests like exemptions from regulations on density or street setbacks and other common requests.
The list includes things like preservation of historic features and adding playgrounds. The list isn’t in any particular order, and much of the list is amenities that would simply be nice to have. But number 11 isn’t so arbitrary; it’s affordable housing—a state law for many communities. Under the Affordable Housing Planning and Appeal Act, cities like Park Ridge must classify 10% of their housing stock as affordable.
As Park Ridge approaches a compliance deadline in 2029, city leaders are debating the best path forward to ensure people who work in Park Ridge can live in Park Ridge.
The Planning and Zoning Commission has not requested any changes to policy. However, so far that policy has netted only eight percent affordable housing and some leaders—and residents—say a list of suggested amenities in no particular order isn’t enough to get the city to 10 percent.
One resident, Kristin Berg, wrote an open letter to the council suggesting the city create a tiered system wherein the city at least has its more-important priorities near the top of the list as opposed to a random list.
Several alderpeople agreed the city ought to give more credit somehow to developers that offered affordable housing, though the mechanism to do that remained unclear. Mayor Marty Maloney suggested making affordable housing an outright requirement on some developments.
“There is a way to take affordable housing and not worry about where it sits on the list,” he said. “To make it mandatory.”
Maloney said the city could require it for apartment developments and not necessarily housing developments or properties that would be owned.
“If we want to move the needle of affordable housing, that’s how we have to do it,” he said. “If we want to do it and there are votes to do it then we should do it otherwise we’re just dancing around the edges.”
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John Moran suggested possibly adopting a point system, wherein each developer would have to earn a minimum number of points to develop a property in Park Ridge and those points would be given based on priorities—the higher the priority, the more points given.
“In order to get your development passed you need 10 or 20 points or whatever it is,” Moran suggested. He said as it is, some of the amenities on the list might not be amenities to certain people at all—a points system would at least make the approval process clearer.
Community Development and Preservation Director Drew Awsumb said he understood how frustrating the requirements are, given the list isn’t prioritized and it’s not clear what kinds of amenities will get a deal approved.
“There’s not a formula and each application is, taken case by case and that’s just how it works and I can appreciate how frustrating that is,” Awsumb said.
The council decided to revisit the issue again in November and directed Awsumb to, in the meantime, find out how other cities are hitting the 10 percent goal of affordable housing. He said he didn’t know of any towns in Illinois that had a points system, but he could look outside the state, too.
“We’ll take case studies from anywhere,” he said, before adding that not all solutions may work here. “Sometimes you can find great examples in other states that you can’t bring back to Illinois.”
Jesse Wright is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.