Retired Developer Takes Issue with Rushed Upzoning Plan

I believe that Evanston residents support affordable housing. I know I do. However, rezoning an entire city, and lifting regulations on height, bulk, and parking, conflicts with other goals, not least of which are our environmental goals. It also negatively impacts the homes and rights of residents who have invested in their homes and neighborhoods. So the affordability benefits need to be substantial to justify that. Would upzoning all our R1, R2, and R3 districts -- most of the residential land area of Evanston -- as well as all the business strips and downtown areas where thousands of renters and condo owners live, really do that?

After decades in the real estate business, in which I've worked with countless developers big and small, I see no evidence to suggest that the drastic changes to all neighborhoods being proposed will make a dent in the affordable housing problem unless there is a plan for it to happen, and investment by the City at a level that has never occurred. Such planning doesn't exist in the current draft Plan. Instead, what's proposed is little more than a supply-side "deregulation" amounting to a giveaway of residential and business district airspace. In stead of affordability, that's more likely to result just in spot teardowns, and development of expensive housing, at the expense of residential quality of life.

Below is a letter from Alf McConnell, longtime Evanston resident and retired affordable housing developer, who provides a lot of reasons why the City is off track and this upzoning of Evanston will not result in permanent affordable housing for our community.

Please let your friends and neighbors know that the upzoning of Evanston is being rushed, before most people even know it’s happening. Send them this article and others on this website. And urge the mayor and Council before their meeting on Mon. Jan 13 to vote in favor of giving the process far more time in which to consider all the data, studies, possible consequences, and, most importantly, the expertise of Evanston residents.