A group of residents in 5th Ward Evanston are fighting plans for an affordable housing project in their ward as City Council members consider a vote on the project.
Residents said they are not against affordable housing but they are against segregation and redlining while being for scattered affordable housing and homeownership.
“I’m all for affordable housing. My family and I have been providing affordable housing in Evanston for over 70 years,” resident Todd Smith said. “This is going to put a lot of pressure on landlords in the immediate area. So when we talk about keeping people in the area, this is going to force a lot of landlords out of the area because they cannot compete against these prices that are being provided for affordable housing.”
The full project would span half of the 1800 block of Church Street, with the housing complex hosting first floor retail space and 33 affordable housing units on three upper floors. Prices for the units will range from $600 to $800 for a one bedroom, $700 to $900 for a two bedroom and $900 to $1,100 for a three bedroom.
Richard Koenig, executive director of nonprofit Housing Opportunity Development Corporation which is building and managing the project, is hoping to give priority to Evanston residents for units, but this would require approval from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Because federal law bans discriminatory housing practices, it normally would not allow giving priority to any group.
Opponents of the project — which would see Mt. Pisgah Ministry relocate to the corner of Church Street and Darrow Avenue in a land swap with Housing Opportunity Development Corporation — have a laundry list of concerns including increased traffic, lack of available parking and the large number of affordable housing projects being placed in the 5th Ward compared to other parts of the city.
The corner currently houses an empty lot owned by the city that was previously a gas station, and since gas formerly contained lead, some environmental checks or remediation will need to be performed, according to various officials. Developers for the Mt. Pisgah plan have stated the soil underneath the land is contaminated but will be removed and properly contained once the church collects the funding needed for the rebuild. The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency will also have to sign off on the project once completed. There were concerns brought up during the March 13 Planning and Development Committee meeting as well that water has precipitated under the existing barrier that could impact the groundwater. Until new samples are taken, the amount and concentration are unknown.
Some residents have asked Councilmembers Devon Reid and Bobby Burns to recuse themselves from the vote, stating they believe the pair have a personal vested interest in seeing the project completed. Both have stated they will not be recusing themselves as they have no conflict of interest or personal connections to HODC and Mt. Pisgah.
“I encourage people to file an ethics complaint if they feel that I have a conflict on this issue,” Burns said. “I do not have a conflict. If I did, I would recuse.”
Councilmember Clare Kelly said she understands the concerns 5th Ward residents have about the number of affordable housing units in their ward and would like to see data on where affordable housing is throughout the city. A recent report by EvanstonNow stated the city’s 5th Ward does host more affordable housing units than the other eight wards, a choice which opponents such as Carlis Sutton and Xiomara Chambers have called “modernized redlining.”
Reid said affordable housing units need to be placed wherever the city can fit them, adding that zoning that restricts building to single-family residential units in other wards makes it difficult to build affordable housing there. Opponents push back against this saying city zoning can be changed.
“We wouldn’t say there’s too many grocery stores or open green space,” Burns said. “We wouldn’t use that same argument for anything other than something we think is undesirable and a nuisance.”
He agrees there should be affordable housing available all around the city and City Council is hoping to accomplish this by adopting a new comprehensive plan and zoning map that allows for more density.
“It’s going to take a mixture of public support and political will,” he said. “I think the political will is there. We need to see where the community is on it. Certainly, a majority of council members support it.”
City Council has named affordable housing as its top priority to tackle for 2023, and it has plans to address it by revisiting Evanston’s Inclusionary Housing Ordinance, increasing its affordable housing stock, fully funding a housing inspection program and providing funding to enforce the city’s fair housing ordinance.
Residents also say the lot is the only commercially zoned spot left available in the 5th Ward but Burns says the first floor retail included in the housing complex plan allows the chance for it to be filled with a business residents can be proud of.
One resident, Radica Sutz, would like to see the property stay available for a different commercial endeavor.
“We have spent years here planning this. This should be a place, possibly a jazz center to celebrate the history of Black people in this community. Maybe a coffee shop,” Sutz said. “I am highly urging that no one in a normal state of mind should give to any nonprofit organization any money unless they have a full financial disclosure.”
Opponents say homeownership would encourage residents to be more involved with the community rather than having a stream of move ins and outs at a large housing complex. They also worry with more residents the greater chance there is for the building to become a nuisance property. In city code, a property can be named a nuisance premises if it has documented one or more aggravated offenses — such as homicide, aggravated battery, aggravated assault and more — or two or more non-aggravated offenses such as manufacture or selling of controlled substances, disturbing the peace or noise violations, in a 12-month period.
Deputy City Attorney Alexandra Ruggie said it is very rare for a property to be deemed a nuisance premises by the chief of police. The city first attempts to work with the owner to abate the nuisance, whether that be through increased lighting and security or other means, and if it isn’t solved, the issue can go to court and result in fines.
“The purpose behind it is to really work with the owner, the landlord, to abate the nuisance and get them into an abatement program where they’re managing the building and the premise better,” Ruggie said.
Opponents point to another HODC-owned property in Evanston at 319 Dempster Street where they say there are documented cases of disturbance calls to the police. Ruggie said the property is one local police and property standards officials with the city keep an eye on but the building isn’t considered a nuisance premises.
During the City Council meeting on March 27, Kelly said she has gotten nonstop calls about 319 Dempster regarding issues including fires, a resident taken out with broken bones and a lacerated face, the front door getting broken down, drug dealing and a dead body found in a unit.
“I think we need, in Evanston, to hold all of our landlords to high standards of accountability for the health, safety and welfare of their residents,” she said. “Problematic is an understatement with regard to 319 Dempster. I feel terrible for the residents in this building. I would like to see management and improvement there as a precondition to passing this. If we really care about our most vulnerable residents, we have to do this.”
Burns said it was “sick” to him that others were using “a very sad situation to exploit a political position that they have” and that first responders had been on that floor several times without being aware of the body.
“A single persons perspective on a situation that may have lasted days and weeks and months does not constitute enough information for this body to determine that there’s a chronic issue,” he said. “Especially when it only involves one building.”
Housing and Grants Manager Sarah Flax said that the city recently did a routine inspection of the property and found no proof that HODC was providing substandard housing.
“Were all the units perfect? No,” she said. “There were some people who don’t keep their units very clean, just as there always are. They are told that they have to take care of that but there was nothing out of the ordinary for a 48 unit project that was strikingly different from any other housing that was providing for tenants at this income level.”
In regards to 319 Dempster, Koenig said that HODC is working with Kelly to address issues at the property as they come up and the company is doing its best to do right by the residents.
He also said that there has been a lot of misinformation put out about the property, tenants there are overall doing well and the issues boil down to one or two bad tenants that can disrupt an entire building.
Ruggie said that the city’s nuisance premises ordinance doesn’t have a process for evicting problem tenants and individual units can only be addressed if there are multiple property standards violations that can deem it uninhabitable such as a hoarding situation or pest infestation.
Koenig said there will be a unit devoted to an HODC representative to serve as the nonprofit’s eyes and ears in the building. There are plans for security cameras to be placed around the building and in common areas along with a key card entry system for residents.
“I think there are a lot of housing needs and this can only address one of them. It’s hard sometimes to comprehensively look at what all the needs are and address them. This is just one potential solution to a variety of housing issues,” Koenig said. “We agree there should be homeownership. There should be more rental housing. We need all of that. We can’t do it all at once.”
City Council unanimously voted to table the issue until the April 10 meeting.