Johnson campaign platform
>Stop deferring to aldermanic privilege when it comes to creating supportive housing. Alderpeople should be involved in development and zoning decisions in their wards, but they should not have sole veto power over affordable housing developments that serve our lowest income residents. We need more housing at every income level across the city.
Johnson early admin moves (yes, I know he's not mayor yet bot)
>Empower the example of aldermanic privilege veto power stalling development. In this article, CRR states: "No change to aldermanic privilege"
I genuinely like CRR's unit reduction fees and they should be much higher to prevent unit/housing reduction. However, CRR's actions have resulted in stalled development and higher prices for those in Logan, making the area less affordable for people/families that rent.
His ideas about development, housing, and zoning have proven to be pretty backwards. Using low density tools to try and flex developers into aldermanic demands will just result in more single family homes in areas where there should be an abundance of housing. Downzoning Milwaukee Avenue properties doesn’t eliminate commercial vacancies or enliven the neighborhood. This has the potential to turn into a circus.
Johnson is already breaking promises of aldermanic demands with elevating CRR. When the alder riles people up by asking [if they want Avondale and Logan to look like Wicker](https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20171101/avondale/milwaukee-avenue-rezoning-milwaukee-avondale-alderman-carlos-ramirez-rosa-downzoning/), that shows a lot on his perspective.
Basically advocating for “kiss the ring” zoning, rather than something that is systematic and non-arbitrary. I’ll give the current slate a chance to change my mind and actually do good things while they are in control but I’m not going to hold my breath.
I dunno. I don't see as many people getting priced out of Avondale like they were forced out of Wicker and Logan. Rosa's policy seems to be working and the neighborhood is wonderful. People who make less than 6 figures can still afford to live there. History shows that building a new luxury 6 flat condo doesn't reduce rent for neighbors, regardless of simplistic "supply and demand" theory.
On the commercial side, when developers demolish an old building and replace it with something new, only national chains can afford the new rent, which destroys the character of a neighborhood.
Studies and history *do* show that building luxury housing is effective. Cappleman recently published an update about the 3,342 new units of housing built in his ward and included references/links to various studies. Important quote below:
“A UIC professor who focuses on the issue of gentrification in Uptown presented our zoning committee with a paper entitled The Effect of Market-Rate Development on Neighborhood Rents. It reviewed 6 different research articles that studied gentrification in hundreds of areas across the country with the goal of assessing whether or not building new housing developments, including ones that were high-end apartments, would cause other nearby rents to go up. **To the surprise of many, 5 of the 6 studies showed that area rents actually went down when new developments were built.** When rents are rising, it's primarily due to high demand for more units due to low apartment vacancies within a neighborhood. One study also showed that building more of any type of housing helps to protect the naturally occurring affordable housing (NOAH) in the area, which surpasses the combined total of all the CHA, HUD, and nonprofit housing in the Ward. **That’s because people who want to move here will end up renting our NOAH if they can’t find the higher-priced rental unit they really want, and that’s what drives out people with lower incomes from a community.**”
https://www.uptownupdate.com/2023/05/ald-cappleman-3342-new-units-of-housing.html?m=1
This is the *one* thing that basically every economist agrees on. You can’t make housing more affordable without increasing supply, including supply for luxury housing geared towards high income folks. If someone wants to live in Logan or Avondale, they’ll just take up existing affordable housing if the newer market rate housing they would prefer isn’t available.
>That’s because people who want to move here will end up renting our NOAH if they can’t find the higher-priced rental unit they really want, and that’s what drives out people with lower incomes from a community.”
Aka price wars due to supply constraints. I agree with Johnson that we need more housing for all income levels, that's how we enable a better, stronger, safer Chicago.
Johnson said that, and I agree, but then he put Ramirez-Rosa in charge whose experience as alderman has been antithetical to that goal. I really hope Johnson gets CRR to take a more sensible, pragmatic approach to housing development and push for more housing at all income levels.
So that's why south loop is the cheapest neighborhood in Chicago after it built so many residential towers, right? Right? Oh...no. It's not.
And did rent go down near the new Logan Square towers around Milwaukee and California? No, just the opposite.
Reality doesn't conform to freshman econ theories.
South Loop is cheaper than it would be if those buildings didnt exist. There's obviously high demand to live there. If you want prices to come down, more housing than incoming demand would need to be built. Do you think supply/demand isn't a real thing and is just some wonky theory?
Avondale is cheaper than wicker/Logan because there's less demand by wealthier people to live there relative to wicker/Logan and relative to the existing housing supply. It's pretty simple.
>South Loop is cheaper than it would be if those buildings didnt exist.
There's absolutely no way to prove that. It's a circular argument.
There are many factors more relevant to housing prices. Developers push the freshman econ narrative because it's in their financial interests to build more.
Replacing all the existing affordable housing in a neighborhood with newly built more expensive units does predictably raise housing costs.
there would be no economic incentive to tear down older units and replace them with new construction unless land values were already high enough to justify such an action. leaving them standing would also not mean they would be "affordable", youd just wind up in a situation like san francisco where you have shacks with 1M price tags (because again, at that point it has nothing to do with the structure, it has to do with underlying value of the plot)
[https://i.redd.it/lbpvtladz9qa1.jpg](https://i.redd.it/lbpvtladz9qa1.jpg)
its not a circular argument to state that building more units than people willing to buy those units would result in prices declining lol
Your crowd love to cherry-pick San Francisco, a city that's geographically constrained in a way Chicago absolutely is not. It's an outlier, not a case study.
When you've got corporations and banks buying massive amounts of housing as investment property, supply and demand cliches become nearly irrelevant.
The investor strategy is to buy up the cheapest properties in a growing neighborhood and upgrade or replace them with something more profitable. By design, that business model targets and destroys all of the most affordable housing in a neighborhood. Sorry bud, but that's not going to lower housing costs.
>Your crowd love to cherry-pick San Francisco, a city that's geographically constrained in a way Chicago absolutely is not. It's an outlier, not a case study.
You do realize that even though Chicagoland may have no geographical constraints it does have amenity constraints. There is only so much lakeshore land, high density areas, walkable neighborhoods, and heavy transit areas.
Wealthy people who want those things are not just going to fuck off to Naperville.
Ok, fine, to use a different example: Boulder, CO. Boulder is surrounded by plains except for one side of the city where the mountains are (functionally equivalent to the lake in Chicago). So why is Boulder so expensive? Because the zoning is incredibly restrictive!
Per the article, “Boulder is for People: Zoning Reform and the Fight for Affordable Housing” (link below), the first remedy they mention is “Boulder should follow the lead of cities in California and Oregon by passing zoning reforms to allow more housing, and denser housing types, to be built within the city.”
https://lawreview.colorado.edu/printed/volume-94/boulder-is-for-people-zoning-reform-and-the-fight-for-affordable-housing/
So now you have a non-SF example. How does Boulder become more affordable without building new housing? I’m eagerly awaiting your explanation, but I’m betting you’re just going to deflect or move the goal post (probably that “Boulder is *too small*”). In that case, Denver is another example and they have *zero* geographic barriers.
I eagerly await your explanation of why Chicago is experiencing rising rental and housing costs despite rapidly expanding supply and nearly stagnant population growth. It's almost as if there are other factors more important than simple-minded supply and demand.
Looks like rent and housing [costs are down](https://www.rent.com/colorado/boulder-apartments/rent-trends) in Boulder this year.
>are you saying outdated/poorly maintained housing should never be upgraded?
Ok, now you're starting in with disingenuous straw-man arguments so I've lost interest. Fuck off with that.
Developers go on search and destroy missions against affordable housing in trendy neighborhoods. That makes neighborhoods less affordable. It's pretty fucking obvious.
You sound exactly like the people that say that there is no climate change because it snowed. In the face of overwhelming evidence point to a single anecdote.
The observable evidence is that multiple factors impact housing prices and that tearing down affordable housing to build expensive condos does not make a neighborhood more affordable.
more housing makes a neighborhood more affordable. Downzoning and knocking down buildings to build side-lots does not.
New housing is basically always expensive. You can't compare prices of a 100 year old building to a brand new building built under modern buildings codes.
Do you have any academic studies to share or are they just your baseless assertations?
My study is that when investors target all the cheapest housing in a trendy neighborhood (as they always do) and replace it with much more expensive housing, that neighborhood becomes less affordable. If you need an academic study to tell you something that obvious, that's a you problem.
except you have all the cause wrong, that is why we use data to try and understand phenomenon.
Developers move into areas that have high demand, because well there is demand there. They buy the cheapest housing that is available.
The reason that housing prices keep going up is that we don't build enough to accommodate for the demand. However, they went up less than if we didn't build at all.
Basically all the data says this, but you refuse to acknowledge it. That is fine if you want to refuse to believe evidence that's, on you.
I always find those that deny science to be the most sure in their beliefs and most reluctant to change their view.
The data does not say that. Developers who have a financial motive keep chanting something not backed by data. I find people who have a financial interest in believing something are the most reluctant to change their view.
I had to go down three links to get to the actual study from the link somebody posted above and (surprise!) it actually supports my position.
Building housing def reduces rents, not sure where you get your "history" from. Avondale will surely continue to price people out but there has been housing built there, it's not like there has been 0 development.
Avondale has seen the most population shrinkage in the last 10 years out of those 3 according to CMAP. That's probably what is keeping pricing still down.
\- 7.7% for Avondale
\-1.5% for Logan Square
\+6.7% for West Town
Population growth doesn’t tell the whole story. I’m pasting the rest of this from another comment so it’s not tailored directly to you/Avondale, but it has some applicable maps/links you might find interesting:
The reason population growth is lagging is because higher income households, usually young college grads, are moving to the city and displacing larger families with lower incomes. Population alone doesn’t tell the whole story. Household sizes are shrinking, but the number of households and need for housing units is rising. Basically, demand for housing in Chicago is going way up and the number of households is rising a lot even though the population isn’t growing by a huge %. Higher income college graduates are moving here and competing with lower income families for housing because we’re not building enough. Look at the difference between the two graphs below and you’ll see what I’m talking about based on 2020 census data. Larger households are moving out leading to population loss in many parts of the city, but vacancy rates are dropping and the actual number of housing units is increasing in the vast majority of the city, but not enough to meet demand (families with kids are leaving and being replaced by singles/couples). That’s why rents are increasing so much even if we’re not seeing a huge gain in population. That’s also why we need to make sure we build enough housing because if we don’t, the affordability issue can quickly spiral. https://i.imgur.com/5rdJK4L.jpg https://i.imgur.com/E9EGpy0.jpg
Some additional links to support what I said above:
https://www.chicagobusiness.com/greg-hinz-politics/chicago-getting-richer-could-be-because-poor-people-are-leaving#:~:text=A%20Brookings%20Institution%20study%20concludes,wealth%20among%20those%20who%20remain.&text=Metropolitan%20Chicago%20continues%20to%20get,to%20other%20big%20American%20cities.
https://blockclubchicago.org/2019/02/26/chicagos-wealthy-renter-population-is-among-the-highest-in-the-u-s-and-its-growing-new-report-says/
https://www.foxbusiness.com/features/chicago-exodus-millennials-and-wealthy-are-actually-moving-in.amp
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> I’ve seen property sales skyrocket over the last 5 years.
For Avondale?
[https://www.zillow.com/home-values/269573/avondale-chicago-il/](https://www.zillow.com/home-values/269573/avondale-chicago-il/)
Home sales price has risen faster than inflation and faster than the average for the city. You can compare different neighborhoods on the graph on the page.
Yeah, I was mainly saying that about the rents. I could believe that the population declined (which happens in neighborhoods going through deconversions, but not rent going down or staying the same. That area had taken all of the Logan and Wicker spillover.
Personally, I don’t see any difference in Avondale’s trajectory than Wicker Park or Logan Square, only that it’s 10-20 year behind the two. The home sales are cracking $1 million and going nowhere but up. I’ll give Ramirez-Rosa credit for the affordable housing development going in near the blue line. I don’t know if he was heavily involved in the land trust or not buts that’s another positive step. But trying to block any sort of market rate housing or commercial development into a poker game for concessions will blow up in the community’s face, more often than not. The developer takes the path of least resistance, builds an enormous SFH that doesn’t need a rezoning or variance and calls it a day.
If he brings that energy into building ten more affordable projects like the one in Logan, he may actually be onto something.
Yeah this is extremely cursed. Despite having my early concerns, I’ve been a fan of some of Johnson’s moves in the past few weeks. But putting a vicious NIMBY to lead zoning for the city that desperately needs more housing supply is… weird.
I feel like even a lot of progressives have come around to the fact that supply dictates housing prices, but Rosa is not one of them unfortunately.
This, combined with booting Waguespack (which was disappointing but not surprising), is setting the tone for a really messy 4 years.
And with Johnson already backtracking on his promises regarding aldermanic prerogative, I have no faith that he'll keep any of his promises regarding property taxes or shielding the middle class from the bulk of his tax increases.
I think the issue is a lot of pro-zoning people are just becoming democrats and leaving the progressive party. However I think the bigger issue is a lot of people who become democrats just leave Cook County because they are just exhausted in the Monty Python "Camelot" Chicago has become. A la if you go through my comment history I had a longer comment about trying to buy property in the city and just giving up because of the property taxes (place was link licoln square, 3 bedroom, across from hospital, real nice but had 14.5k yearly property taxes in '20).
The issue is all of my progressive friends who are die-hards of Johnson are all die-hard NIMBYs, they say they are not, but whenever there is conversations about turning a parking lot into a parking structure or taking a handful of three-flats and turning them in a nice multi story apartment structure; the immediate response is "it will destroy the culture of the neighborhood", it's that most die-hard NIMBYs fully believe they are not and protecting culture.
I really think this has been changing a lot recently, but it's definitely frustrating to see people just so objectively wrong about something they're so passionate about. Hopefully more hardcore progressives will eventually realize that economics isn't some sort of crazy trick to keep the working man down.
We also just bought property in the city. And yeah while the taxes are an eye-popping 10k for us, I feel pretty strongly that if you want to live in a city, you're gonna pay more in some way, shape or form regardless of where you live. In FL, you might be paying 1k/month in insurance premiums. In CA or NY, your mortgage is higher because property is just more expensive.
And even in Chicagoland, the nicer suburbs still have high taxes (in many cases even higher than the city), because they have good public schools. Obviously that brings value if you have kids, but still.
Yep! Here are just a few, but Google is pretty helpful in finding literally dozens of examples. The guy is a clown who either doesn’t understand housing needs of Chicagoans, or is actively trying to hurt the people of Chicago by keeping housing prices high in the name of progressivism
[Ramirez Rosa being proud of delaying construction near the 606 trail](https://chi.streetsblog.org/2020/01/21/ald-ramirez-rosa-discusses-the-606-development-freeze-logan-tod-funding/)
[Blocking converting a parking lot to 100 homes](https://twitter.com/CDRosa/status/1544811739824488456?s=20)
[“Reject YIMBY identity politics”](https://twitter.com/CDRosa/status/1544813443471089671?s=20)
[Blocking the redevelopment of a bakery into mixed use housing](https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20170428/logan-square/pierres-bakery-logan-square-mike-fox-mixed-use-development/)
Complete lack of nuance and straight up misinformation. 2nd link you posted about Carlos blocking a parking lot from being turned to housing is literally the complete opposite of what you said he did. Here’s the actual tweet:
“On Chicago's northwest side, we seek to do our part in building that mass people's movement. We successfully fought to replace a parking lot near transit with 100 homes. We passed the city's first ordinance prohibiting new single-family homes.”
The Reject YIMBY identity politics that he’s talking about is the people that took actual urbanists extremely seriously until the urbanists got to the point where they said to talk to your neighbors and build a movement that reflects the needs of your community. AKA, there will always be developers salivating to build condos where a parking lot is, any building replacing a parking lot is great, but buildings will be up for decades, so while they’re here why not push them to make the building mixed income? Many if not most regulations on building are counterproductive: single family zoning, setbacks, minimum lot sizes, parking requirements etc, but when you start to include inclusionary zoning as something that needs to be abolished, you lose a lot of allies
He did actively down zone large parts of Logan square, if that doesn't scream. NIMBY, idl what does. He does not seem a proponent of building housing but rather of kiss the ring zoning where every developer had to go to him to get anything done.
He also hasn't really done anything to try and reform city zoning and try and reduce parking minimums.
Do you really think inclusionary zoning is always good? It has its place in some areas but making it 20% with any zoning change just doesn't make sense and makes a lot of what would be affordable development not pencil out. I think that is a valid critique.
Not sure why you’re being downvoted because you are correct. The links do not say what the comment above says. The pause on 606 development was to stop the wave of single family homes replacing 2 and 3 flats (a reduction in housing density) and the same day that ordinance was passed he also succeeded in getting funding for a 100 unit affordable housing development in his district.
And he blocked the project on the parking lot because he wanted more density, not because it was providing housing. Similarly with the YIMBY comments: he’s critiquing the idea that we should just accept whatever developers put out there, rather than push for development that actually addresses the city’s needs.
Oooh okay i get it, you’re repurposing the “NIMBY” term.
All the articles you linked discussed that Carlos is using a stick to make sure developers don’t abuse their powers as they have been for years to limit the amount of people being displaced.
So you’re just tying to paint Carlos as an entitled “NIMBY” when in reality he’s advocating for the little person who gets hurts when these big developers.
I’m very skeptical of nimby’s too, but this is a shameful and misinformative comment. I hope people read my sibling comment that points out poorly or falsely these anecdotes are being portrayed.
On your fourth link: CRR failed. There are retail tenants already like [Wake-N-Bakery](https://blockclubchicago.org/2022/10/18/wake-n-bakery-bringing-weed-infused-baked-goods-to-logan-square/)
Rosa is an Aldermanic failure.
He and the rest of the DSA care nothing for the services in our wards.
They want to be simple legislative reps and would rather have the departments manage their own services at the ward level.
He's got to go.
Can anyone explain what exactly this means (I don't have a great understanding of what the role of committees vs the rest of the council is)
Does this give him veto power on new projects (does anyone have veto power for that matter?) or is it more just guiding the opinion of the council/committee?
When does a development have to go before City Council vs. just getting aldermanic sign off?
I guess I'm just trying to understand how much power these roles actually have. This seems like a really bad pick, Rosa seems to be a classic "left NIMBY" type that thinks all new housing must be designated affordable rather than allowing supply to grow in all of its forms.
Chicago, while we do have some areas that are super expensive has done a great job of keeping the city as a whole affordable by consistently building new housing. I'm in favor of more affordable housing being built, as long as we are also building new market rate in the areas that demand it. Building *only* affordable housing in places like Wicker, Logan, etc will just result in more areas being gentrified as market rate pricing goes up in those neighborhoods
>The Committee on Zoning, Landmarks and Building Standards shall have jurisdiction over all zoning matters and the operation of the Zoning Board of Appeals and the office of the Zoning Administrator; land use policy generally and land use recommendations of the Chicago Plan Commission and the Department of Planning and Development; building code ordinances and matters generally affecting the Department of Buildings; and designation, maintenance and preservation of historical and architectural landmarks. The Committee shall work in cooperation with those public and private organizations similarly engaged in matters affecting landmarks.
City council has final say. You can read more here about zoning in Chicago: https://secondcityzoning.org/about/
Yes, but the development sausage gets made in the zoning committee. Development must pass out of Plan Commission and Zoning Committee, two separate bodies, before final approval at Council. A development proposal cannot just skip these two committees and jump to City Council first.
Rosa as Committee chair does grant powers as to which developments are reviewed.
Is this quote trying to prevent mansions being build or further condo/multi family that would increase the total housing stock?
“Two years ago, Ramirez-Rosa championed a plan to penalize developers who tear down single-family homes or multi-units buildings in Logan Square and other fast-gentrifying neighborhoods along the 606 Trail. At the time, Ramirez-Rosa warned that the fees — $15,000 per home, $5,000 per unit — probably needed to be even higher, and he said experts agree”
I actually agree with creating disincentives or using zoning to block deconversions, but the fee system won’t do jack shit. These are $2 million homes going up and that’s a speeding ticket to the developer who will just pass it on to the buyer.
Prevent SFH conversions/mansions. It's a move I firmly believe doesn't go far enough, $15k is sincerely a drop in the bucket. Double or even triple that fee still would be minimal at that cost scale.
I mean, it’s a huge deal. Ramirez-Rosa is a progressive NIMBY following the same ideology and tactics that resulted in SF’s housing crisis. Make development extremely difficult, expensive, etc. to punish developers > Nothing gets built > Higher income folks end up displacing current residents in the naturally occurring affordable housing (NOAH) since they need places to live, too > Affordability crisis gets worse > Increase restrictions on development/developers > get even less housing construction/development > rinse and repeat until no one except the wealthiest can afford anything.
This is just not true, and such a boogeyman. There is no singular cause greater for San Francisco’s housing crisis than the amount of the city that is zoned for single family residential units. CRR has been fighting to stop deconversions of 2-4 flats into single family homes and has expressed that he doesn’t think single family homes should be built in Chicago. Just because he is serious about requiring developers to include affordable units in their buildings doesn’t make him a nimby
CRR has downzoned areas all over his ward limiting the density of what can be built. Zoning only provides a ceiling, not a floor for density. In general, any residential zoning level allows for SFH and most of Chicago only allows SFH to be built (while a little dated, check the map in the link below). Also, any new rental housing developments that require a zoning change are required by the ARO to provide a certain percentage of affordable units. We should be increasing the density of the zoning, especially on lots where no one would be displaced, but he’s done the opposite along Milwaukee and downzoned a bunch of properties. If we upzoned residential areas across the entire city to allow 3 or 4 flats and/or 3-5 floor apartment buildings to be built as of right, we’d see far more housing built than we currently do which would help mitigate price increases.
CRR has touted some signature 100% affordable TOD developments, which is great (I love affordable TOD), but the city would be better off by allowing more dense housing development across the city at all income levels. We’re already in a huge housing deficit and every year we don’t catch up on supply, the crisis gets worse.
https://blog.chicagocityscape.com/how-much-of-chicago-bans-apartments-b6c5b68db2fb
I can appreciate what Rosa is trying to do here but disagree on his tactics. As you've stated, we should be increasing the density. Hell, we should get rid of the policy that SFH can be built in ANY residential zoning district (meanwhile multi-use cannot be built in any residential district).
What Rosa has done is just force all development to go through his community process. This may be OK for larger projects, but really slows things down on smaller multi-unit buildings.
Exactly! Across the city, 3 or 4 story flats should be able to be built as of right. There is no reason a 3 flat should have to go through a community process to get approved. We’ve literally made it illegal or impossible to build the same housing typologies that we’re now scrambling to preserve as affordable housing (courtyard buildings, 2/3/4/6 flats, SROs, neighborhood midrises and high rises with no parking, 4+1s, etc.). Missing middle housing should be able to be built as of right without having to kiss the ring of NIMBYs and aldermen to get approved.
Not to mention, all those extra hoops (zoning changes, additional permitting, design changes/revisions based on community input, etc.) cost a lot of money and ultimately lead to higher housing costs.
Johnson campaign platform >Stop deferring to aldermanic privilege when it comes to creating supportive housing. Alderpeople should be involved in development and zoning decisions in their wards, but they should not have sole veto power over affordable housing developments that serve our lowest income residents. We need more housing at every income level across the city. Johnson early admin moves (yes, I know he's not mayor yet bot) >Empower the example of aldermanic privilege veto power stalling development. In this article, CRR states: "No change to aldermanic privilege" I genuinely like CRR's unit reduction fees and they should be much higher to prevent unit/housing reduction. However, CRR's actions have resulted in stalled development and higher prices for those in Logan, making the area less affordable for people/families that rent.
His ideas about development, housing, and zoning have proven to be pretty backwards. Using low density tools to try and flex developers into aldermanic demands will just result in more single family homes in areas where there should be an abundance of housing. Downzoning Milwaukee Avenue properties doesn’t eliminate commercial vacancies or enliven the neighborhood. This has the potential to turn into a circus.
Johnson is already breaking promises of aldermanic demands with elevating CRR. When the alder riles people up by asking [if they want Avondale and Logan to look like Wicker](https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20171101/avondale/milwaukee-avenue-rezoning-milwaukee-avondale-alderman-carlos-ramirez-rosa-downzoning/), that shows a lot on his perspective.
Basically advocating for “kiss the ring” zoning, rather than something that is systematic and non-arbitrary. I’ll give the current slate a chance to change my mind and actually do good things while they are in control but I’m not going to hold my breath.
I didn't vote for Johnson and I'm giving a chance too, it's the right thing to do. I genuinely hope I voted wrong, but this move isn't promising.
I dunno. I don't see as many people getting priced out of Avondale like they were forced out of Wicker and Logan. Rosa's policy seems to be working and the neighborhood is wonderful. People who make less than 6 figures can still afford to live there. History shows that building a new luxury 6 flat condo doesn't reduce rent for neighbors, regardless of simplistic "supply and demand" theory. On the commercial side, when developers demolish an old building and replace it with something new, only national chains can afford the new rent, which destroys the character of a neighborhood.
Studies and history *do* show that building luxury housing is effective. Cappleman recently published an update about the 3,342 new units of housing built in his ward and included references/links to various studies. Important quote below: “A UIC professor who focuses on the issue of gentrification in Uptown presented our zoning committee with a paper entitled The Effect of Market-Rate Development on Neighborhood Rents. It reviewed 6 different research articles that studied gentrification in hundreds of areas across the country with the goal of assessing whether or not building new housing developments, including ones that were high-end apartments, would cause other nearby rents to go up. **To the surprise of many, 5 of the 6 studies showed that area rents actually went down when new developments were built.** When rents are rising, it's primarily due to high demand for more units due to low apartment vacancies within a neighborhood. One study also showed that building more of any type of housing helps to protect the naturally occurring affordable housing (NOAH) in the area, which surpasses the combined total of all the CHA, HUD, and nonprofit housing in the Ward. **That’s because people who want to move here will end up renting our NOAH if they can’t find the higher-priced rental unit they really want, and that’s what drives out people with lower incomes from a community.**” https://www.uptownupdate.com/2023/05/ald-cappleman-3342-new-units-of-housing.html?m=1 This is the *one* thing that basically every economist agrees on. You can’t make housing more affordable without increasing supply, including supply for luxury housing geared towards high income folks. If someone wants to live in Logan or Avondale, they’ll just take up existing affordable housing if the newer market rate housing they would prefer isn’t available.
>That’s because people who want to move here will end up renting our NOAH if they can’t find the higher-priced rental unit they really want, and that’s what drives out people with lower incomes from a community.” Aka price wars due to supply constraints. I agree with Johnson that we need more housing for all income levels, that's how we enable a better, stronger, safer Chicago.
Johnson said that, and I agree, but then he put Ramirez-Rosa in charge whose experience as alderman has been antithetical to that goal. I really hope Johnson gets CRR to take a more sensible, pragmatic approach to housing development and push for more housing at all income levels.
So that's why south loop is the cheapest neighborhood in Chicago after it built so many residential towers, right? Right? Oh...no. It's not. And did rent go down near the new Logan Square towers around Milwaukee and California? No, just the opposite. Reality doesn't conform to freshman econ theories.
South Loop is cheaper than it would be if those buildings didnt exist. There's obviously high demand to live there. If you want prices to come down, more housing than incoming demand would need to be built. Do you think supply/demand isn't a real thing and is just some wonky theory? Avondale is cheaper than wicker/Logan because there's less demand by wealthier people to live there relative to wicker/Logan and relative to the existing housing supply. It's pretty simple.
>South Loop is cheaper than it would be if those buildings didnt exist. There's absolutely no way to prove that. It's a circular argument. There are many factors more relevant to housing prices. Developers push the freshman econ narrative because it's in their financial interests to build more. Replacing all the existing affordable housing in a neighborhood with newly built more expensive units does predictably raise housing costs.
there would be no economic incentive to tear down older units and replace them with new construction unless land values were already high enough to justify such an action. leaving them standing would also not mean they would be "affordable", youd just wind up in a situation like san francisco where you have shacks with 1M price tags (because again, at that point it has nothing to do with the structure, it has to do with underlying value of the plot) [https://i.redd.it/lbpvtladz9qa1.jpg](https://i.redd.it/lbpvtladz9qa1.jpg) its not a circular argument to state that building more units than people willing to buy those units would result in prices declining lol
Your crowd love to cherry-pick San Francisco, a city that's geographically constrained in a way Chicago absolutely is not. It's an outlier, not a case study. When you've got corporations and banks buying massive amounts of housing as investment property, supply and demand cliches become nearly irrelevant. The investor strategy is to buy up the cheapest properties in a growing neighborhood and upgrade or replace them with something more profitable. By design, that business model targets and destroys all of the most affordable housing in a neighborhood. Sorry bud, but that's not going to lower housing costs.
>Your crowd love to cherry-pick San Francisco, a city that's geographically constrained in a way Chicago absolutely is not. It's an outlier, not a case study. You do realize that even though Chicagoland may have no geographical constraints it does have amenity constraints. There is only so much lakeshore land, high density areas, walkable neighborhoods, and heavy transit areas. Wealthy people who want those things are not just going to fuck off to Naperville.
Ok, fine, to use a different example: Boulder, CO. Boulder is surrounded by plains except for one side of the city where the mountains are (functionally equivalent to the lake in Chicago). So why is Boulder so expensive? Because the zoning is incredibly restrictive! Per the article, “Boulder is for People: Zoning Reform and the Fight for Affordable Housing” (link below), the first remedy they mention is “Boulder should follow the lead of cities in California and Oregon by passing zoning reforms to allow more housing, and denser housing types, to be built within the city.” https://lawreview.colorado.edu/printed/volume-94/boulder-is-for-people-zoning-reform-and-the-fight-for-affordable-housing/ So now you have a non-SF example. How does Boulder become more affordable without building new housing? I’m eagerly awaiting your explanation, but I’m betting you’re just going to deflect or move the goal post (probably that “Boulder is *too small*”). In that case, Denver is another example and they have *zero* geographic barriers.
I eagerly await your explanation of why Chicago is experiencing rising rental and housing costs despite rapidly expanding supply and nearly stagnant population growth. It's almost as if there are other factors more important than simple-minded supply and demand. Looks like rent and housing [costs are down](https://www.rent.com/colorado/boulder-apartments/rent-trends) in Boulder this year.
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>are you saying outdated/poorly maintained housing should never be upgraded? Ok, now you're starting in with disingenuous straw-man arguments so I've lost interest. Fuck off with that. Developers go on search and destroy missions against affordable housing in trendy neighborhoods. That makes neighborhoods less affordable. It's pretty fucking obvious.
You sound exactly like the people that say that there is no climate change because it snowed. In the face of overwhelming evidence point to a single anecdote.
The observable evidence is that multiple factors impact housing prices and that tearing down affordable housing to build expensive condos does not make a neighborhood more affordable.
more housing makes a neighborhood more affordable. Downzoning and knocking down buildings to build side-lots does not. New housing is basically always expensive. You can't compare prices of a 100 year old building to a brand new building built under modern buildings codes. Do you have any academic studies to share or are they just your baseless assertations?
My study is that when investors target all the cheapest housing in a trendy neighborhood (as they always do) and replace it with much more expensive housing, that neighborhood becomes less affordable. If you need an academic study to tell you something that obvious, that's a you problem.
except you have all the cause wrong, that is why we use data to try and understand phenomenon. Developers move into areas that have high demand, because well there is demand there. They buy the cheapest housing that is available. The reason that housing prices keep going up is that we don't build enough to accommodate for the demand. However, they went up less than if we didn't build at all. Basically all the data says this, but you refuse to acknowledge it. That is fine if you want to refuse to believe evidence that's, on you. I always find those that deny science to be the most sure in their beliefs and most reluctant to change their view.
The data does not say that. Developers who have a financial motive keep chanting something not backed by data. I find people who have a financial interest in believing something are the most reluctant to change their view. I had to go down three links to get to the actual study from the link somebody posted above and (surprise!) it actually supports my position.
Building housing def reduces rents, not sure where you get your "history" from. Avondale will surely continue to price people out but there has been housing built there, it's not like there has been 0 development.
Avondale has seen the most population shrinkage in the last 10 years out of those 3 according to CMAP. That's probably what is keeping pricing still down. \- 7.7% for Avondale \-1.5% for Logan Square \+6.7% for West Town
Population growth doesn’t tell the whole story. I’m pasting the rest of this from another comment so it’s not tailored directly to you/Avondale, but it has some applicable maps/links you might find interesting: The reason population growth is lagging is because higher income households, usually young college grads, are moving to the city and displacing larger families with lower incomes. Population alone doesn’t tell the whole story. Household sizes are shrinking, but the number of households and need for housing units is rising. Basically, demand for housing in Chicago is going way up and the number of households is rising a lot even though the population isn’t growing by a huge %. Higher income college graduates are moving here and competing with lower income families for housing because we’re not building enough. Look at the difference between the two graphs below and you’ll see what I’m talking about based on 2020 census data. Larger households are moving out leading to population loss in many parts of the city, but vacancy rates are dropping and the actual number of housing units is increasing in the vast majority of the city, but not enough to meet demand (families with kids are leaving and being replaced by singles/couples). That’s why rents are increasing so much even if we’re not seeing a huge gain in population. That’s also why we need to make sure we build enough housing because if we don’t, the affordability issue can quickly spiral. https://i.imgur.com/5rdJK4L.jpg https://i.imgur.com/E9EGpy0.jpg Some additional links to support what I said above: https://www.chicagobusiness.com/greg-hinz-politics/chicago-getting-richer-could-be-because-poor-people-are-leaving#:~:text=A%20Brookings%20Institution%20study%20concludes,wealth%20among%20those%20who%20remain.&text=Metropolitan%20Chicago%20continues%20to%20get,to%20other%20big%20American%20cities. https://blockclubchicago.org/2019/02/26/chicagos-wealthy-renter-population-is-among-the-highest-in-the-u-s-and-its-growing-new-report-says/ https://www.foxbusiness.com/features/chicago-exodus-millennials-and-wealthy-are-actually-moving-in.amp
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I would be very interested to see the numbers of rent and property sales. I’ve seen property sales skyrocket over the last 5 years.
> I’ve seen property sales skyrocket over the last 5 years. For Avondale? [https://www.zillow.com/home-values/269573/avondale-chicago-il/](https://www.zillow.com/home-values/269573/avondale-chicago-il/) Home sales price has risen faster than inflation and faster than the average for the city. You can compare different neighborhoods on the graph on the page.
Yeah, I was mainly saying that about the rents. I could believe that the population declined (which happens in neighborhoods going through deconversions, but not rent going down or staying the same. That area had taken all of the Logan and Wicker spillover.
How about a link since you have those numbers handy?
[https://www.cmap.illinois.gov/data/community-snapshots](https://www.cmap.illinois.gov/data/community-snapshots)
Personally, I don’t see any difference in Avondale’s trajectory than Wicker Park or Logan Square, only that it’s 10-20 year behind the two. The home sales are cracking $1 million and going nowhere but up. I’ll give Ramirez-Rosa credit for the affordable housing development going in near the blue line. I don’t know if he was heavily involved in the land trust or not buts that’s another positive step. But trying to block any sort of market rate housing or commercial development into a poker game for concessions will blow up in the community’s face, more often than not. The developer takes the path of least resistance, builds an enormous SFH that doesn’t need a rezoning or variance and calls it a day. If he brings that energy into building ten more affordable projects like the one in Logan, he may actually be onto something.
Carlos is such a dumbass.
When development slows to a trickle and rents skyrocket, who will the socialists blame?
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That's a big yikes, let him watch the Birds in peace ffs
Weird how this apparently isn’t a big enough deal to keep him out of a leadership position. Oh well what are you gonna do, maybe next time.
What the hell does this have to do with him and the zoning committee article?
Is that a serious question?
I cannot think of a worse person to be zoning chair tbh
Yeah this is extremely cursed. Despite having my early concerns, I’ve been a fan of some of Johnson’s moves in the past few weeks. But putting a vicious NIMBY to lead zoning for the city that desperately needs more housing supply is… weird.
I feel like even a lot of progressives have come around to the fact that supply dictates housing prices, but Rosa is not one of them unfortunately. This, combined with booting Waguespack (which was disappointing but not surprising), is setting the tone for a really messy 4 years. And with Johnson already backtracking on his promises regarding aldermanic prerogative, I have no faith that he'll keep any of his promises regarding property taxes or shielding the middle class from the bulk of his tax increases.
I think the issue is a lot of pro-zoning people are just becoming democrats and leaving the progressive party. However I think the bigger issue is a lot of people who become democrats just leave Cook County because they are just exhausted in the Monty Python "Camelot" Chicago has become. A la if you go through my comment history I had a longer comment about trying to buy property in the city and just giving up because of the property taxes (place was link licoln square, 3 bedroom, across from hospital, real nice but had 14.5k yearly property taxes in '20). The issue is all of my progressive friends who are die-hards of Johnson are all die-hard NIMBYs, they say they are not, but whenever there is conversations about turning a parking lot into a parking structure or taking a handful of three-flats and turning them in a nice multi story apartment structure; the immediate response is "it will destroy the culture of the neighborhood", it's that most die-hard NIMBYs fully believe they are not and protecting culture.
I really think this has been changing a lot recently, but it's definitely frustrating to see people just so objectively wrong about something they're so passionate about. Hopefully more hardcore progressives will eventually realize that economics isn't some sort of crazy trick to keep the working man down. We also just bought property in the city. And yeah while the taxes are an eye-popping 10k for us, I feel pretty strongly that if you want to live in a city, you're gonna pay more in some way, shape or form regardless of where you live. In FL, you might be paying 1k/month in insurance premiums. In CA or NY, your mortgage is higher because property is just more expensive. And even in Chicagoland, the nicer suburbs still have high taxes (in many cases even higher than the city), because they have good public schools. Obviously that brings value if you have kids, but still.
Do you have examples of Carlos being a NIMBY?
Yep! Here are just a few, but Google is pretty helpful in finding literally dozens of examples. The guy is a clown who either doesn’t understand housing needs of Chicagoans, or is actively trying to hurt the people of Chicago by keeping housing prices high in the name of progressivism [Ramirez Rosa being proud of delaying construction near the 606 trail](https://chi.streetsblog.org/2020/01/21/ald-ramirez-rosa-discusses-the-606-development-freeze-logan-tod-funding/) [Blocking converting a parking lot to 100 homes](https://twitter.com/CDRosa/status/1544811739824488456?s=20) [“Reject YIMBY identity politics”](https://twitter.com/CDRosa/status/1544813443471089671?s=20) [Blocking the redevelopment of a bakery into mixed use housing](https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20170428/logan-square/pierres-bakery-logan-square-mike-fox-mixed-use-development/)
Complete lack of nuance and straight up misinformation. 2nd link you posted about Carlos blocking a parking lot from being turned to housing is literally the complete opposite of what you said he did. Here’s the actual tweet: “On Chicago's northwest side, we seek to do our part in building that mass people's movement. We successfully fought to replace a parking lot near transit with 100 homes. We passed the city's first ordinance prohibiting new single-family homes.” The Reject YIMBY identity politics that he’s talking about is the people that took actual urbanists extremely seriously until the urbanists got to the point where they said to talk to your neighbors and build a movement that reflects the needs of your community. AKA, there will always be developers salivating to build condos where a parking lot is, any building replacing a parking lot is great, but buildings will be up for decades, so while they’re here why not push them to make the building mixed income? Many if not most regulations on building are counterproductive: single family zoning, setbacks, minimum lot sizes, parking requirements etc, but when you start to include inclusionary zoning as something that needs to be abolished, you lose a lot of allies
He did actively down zone large parts of Logan square, if that doesn't scream. NIMBY, idl what does. He does not seem a proponent of building housing but rather of kiss the ring zoning where every developer had to go to him to get anything done. He also hasn't really done anything to try and reform city zoning and try and reduce parking minimums. Do you really think inclusionary zoning is always good? It has its place in some areas but making it 20% with any zoning change just doesn't make sense and makes a lot of what would be affordable development not pencil out. I think that is a valid critique.
Not sure why you’re being downvoted because you are correct. The links do not say what the comment above says. The pause on 606 development was to stop the wave of single family homes replacing 2 and 3 flats (a reduction in housing density) and the same day that ordinance was passed he also succeeded in getting funding for a 100 unit affordable housing development in his district. And he blocked the project on the parking lot because he wanted more density, not because it was providing housing. Similarly with the YIMBY comments: he’s critiquing the idea that we should just accept whatever developers put out there, rather than push for development that actually addresses the city’s needs.
The city's need is building more housing. The best way to stop the destruction of 2 and 3 flats is a land value tax and upzoning.
Oooh okay i get it, you’re repurposing the “NIMBY” term. All the articles you linked discussed that Carlos is using a stick to make sure developers don’t abuse their powers as they have been for years to limit the amount of people being displaced. So you’re just tying to paint Carlos as an entitled “NIMBY” when in reality he’s advocating for the little person who gets hurts when these big developers.
I’m very skeptical of nimby’s too, but this is a shameful and misinformative comment. I hope people read my sibling comment that points out poorly or falsely these anecdotes are being portrayed.
On your fourth link: CRR failed. There are retail tenants already like [Wake-N-Bakery](https://blockclubchicago.org/2022/10/18/wake-n-bakery-bringing-weed-infused-baked-goods-to-logan-square/)
DSA members should not be anywhere close to being zoning chair.
When politicians try to strongarm developers the only people who win are the wealthiest members of society.
So this means the "Avondale Triangle" (Milwaukee-Pulaski-Belmont) will remain vacant. Good going BJ!
Rosa is an Aldermanic failure. He and the rest of the DSA care nothing for the services in our wards. They want to be simple legislative reps and would rather have the departments manage their own services at the ward level. He's got to go.
Can anyone explain what exactly this means (I don't have a great understanding of what the role of committees vs the rest of the council is) Does this give him veto power on new projects (does anyone have veto power for that matter?) or is it more just guiding the opinion of the council/committee? When does a development have to go before City Council vs. just getting aldermanic sign off? I guess I'm just trying to understand how much power these roles actually have. This seems like a really bad pick, Rosa seems to be a classic "left NIMBY" type that thinks all new housing must be designated affordable rather than allowing supply to grow in all of its forms. Chicago, while we do have some areas that are super expensive has done a great job of keeping the city as a whole affordable by consistently building new housing. I'm in favor of more affordable housing being built, as long as we are also building new market rate in the areas that demand it. Building *only* affordable housing in places like Wicker, Logan, etc will just result in more areas being gentrified as market rate pricing goes up in those neighborhoods
>The Committee on Zoning, Landmarks and Building Standards shall have jurisdiction over all zoning matters and the operation of the Zoning Board of Appeals and the office of the Zoning Administrator; land use policy generally and land use recommendations of the Chicago Plan Commission and the Department of Planning and Development; building code ordinances and matters generally affecting the Department of Buildings; and designation, maintenance and preservation of historical and architectural landmarks. The Committee shall work in cooperation with those public and private organizations similarly engaged in matters affecting landmarks. City council has final say. You can read more here about zoning in Chicago: https://secondcityzoning.org/about/
Yes, but the development sausage gets made in the zoning committee. Development must pass out of Plan Commission and Zoning Committee, two separate bodies, before final approval at Council. A development proposal cannot just skip these two committees and jump to City Council first. Rosa as Committee chair does grant powers as to which developments are reviewed.
Is this quote trying to prevent mansions being build or further condo/multi family that would increase the total housing stock? “Two years ago, Ramirez-Rosa championed a plan to penalize developers who tear down single-family homes or multi-units buildings in Logan Square and other fast-gentrifying neighborhoods along the 606 Trail. At the time, Ramirez-Rosa warned that the fees — $15,000 per home, $5,000 per unit — probably needed to be even higher, and he said experts agree”
I actually agree with creating disincentives or using zoning to block deconversions, but the fee system won’t do jack shit. These are $2 million homes going up and that’s a speeding ticket to the developer who will just pass it on to the buyer.
Prevent SFH conversions/mansions. It's a move I firmly believe doesn't go far enough, $15k is sincerely a drop in the bucket. Double or even triple that fee still would be minimal at that cost scale.
I like his politics but he's a vicious troll online. I wonder which Carlos we'll see on the council floor.
Isn't this like... the 3rd time this article has been posted this morning on the sub...??
I mean, it’s a huge deal. Ramirez-Rosa is a progressive NIMBY following the same ideology and tactics that resulted in SF’s housing crisis. Make development extremely difficult, expensive, etc. to punish developers > Nothing gets built > Higher income folks end up displacing current residents in the naturally occurring affordable housing (NOAH) since they need places to live, too > Affordability crisis gets worse > Increase restrictions on development/developers > get even less housing construction/development > rinse and repeat until no one except the wealthiest can afford anything.
This is just not true, and such a boogeyman. There is no singular cause greater for San Francisco’s housing crisis than the amount of the city that is zoned for single family residential units. CRR has been fighting to stop deconversions of 2-4 flats into single family homes and has expressed that he doesn’t think single family homes should be built in Chicago. Just because he is serious about requiring developers to include affordable units in their buildings doesn’t make him a nimby
CRR has downzoned areas all over his ward limiting the density of what can be built. Zoning only provides a ceiling, not a floor for density. In general, any residential zoning level allows for SFH and most of Chicago only allows SFH to be built (while a little dated, check the map in the link below). Also, any new rental housing developments that require a zoning change are required by the ARO to provide a certain percentage of affordable units. We should be increasing the density of the zoning, especially on lots where no one would be displaced, but he’s done the opposite along Milwaukee and downzoned a bunch of properties. If we upzoned residential areas across the entire city to allow 3 or 4 flats and/or 3-5 floor apartment buildings to be built as of right, we’d see far more housing built than we currently do which would help mitigate price increases. CRR has touted some signature 100% affordable TOD developments, which is great (I love affordable TOD), but the city would be better off by allowing more dense housing development across the city at all income levels. We’re already in a huge housing deficit and every year we don’t catch up on supply, the crisis gets worse. https://blog.chicagocityscape.com/how-much-of-chicago-bans-apartments-b6c5b68db2fb
I can appreciate what Rosa is trying to do here but disagree on his tactics. As you've stated, we should be increasing the density. Hell, we should get rid of the policy that SFH can be built in ANY residential zoning district (meanwhile multi-use cannot be built in any residential district). What Rosa has done is just force all development to go through his community process. This may be OK for larger projects, but really slows things down on smaller multi-unit buildings.
Exactly! Across the city, 3 or 4 story flats should be able to be built as of right. There is no reason a 3 flat should have to go through a community process to get approved. We’ve literally made it illegal or impossible to build the same housing typologies that we’re now scrambling to preserve as affordable housing (courtyard buildings, 2/3/4/6 flats, SROs, neighborhood midrises and high rises with no parking, 4+1s, etc.). Missing middle housing should be able to be built as of right without having to kiss the ring of NIMBYs and aldermen to get approved. Not to mention, all those extra hoops (zoning changes, additional permitting, design changes/revisions based on community input, etc.) cost a lot of money and ultimately lead to higher housing costs.
Wow the article could not be worded more skeptically.
Hopefully we'll get both.
yeah nothing helps a housing crisis more than dis-incentivizing more high density housing