May 05, 2022 04:53 PM 4 HOURS AGO

An affordable housing project everybody wants is stalled because of an issue with parking

In Lincoln Square, the proposal to build both affordable rentals and public parking on what's now a city-owned surface lot has broad approval, but city officials are balking at the parking arrangement.

The five-story building as proposed, with an entrance to the second-story parking level seen at far right.

In Lincoln Square, a proposal that residents and the local alderman believe is a textbook example of how to add affordable housing to an affluent neighborhood is hung up on City Hall's opposition to its parking plan.

“The overarching goal here is to add affordable housing to a neighborhood that has been bleeding affordable units,” said Ald. Matt Martin, 47th.

“We can get to that,” Martin said, if the parking snarl can be resolved.

On a 43-space surface parking lot at 4715 N. Western Ave. that is now owned by the city, a developer proposes to build a five-story building with commercial space on the first floor, public parking on the second and 51 units of designated affordable housing on the upper three. The apartments would be studios and one- and two-bedrooms priced to meet the city’s standards for affordable housing, at a maximum of about $75,000 household income.

The stack of three uses “is a way to support affordable housing and support one of the hallmark local business districts in the city,” said Teresa Fourcher, a 15-year Lincoln Square resident and urban planner. The Lincoln Avenue strip just east of the parking lot has a thriving mix of restaurants, entertainment venues and retailers, some of whose customers park in the lot.

The combination of uses in the proposed building “is a solution that works for everyone in the community,” Fourcher said.

The existing parking lot has an entrance from Western Avenue, and as proposed by developer The Community Builders, the new building would as well, with 41 parking spaces on the second floor. In December, the proposal was one of 24 that the city Department of Housing included in a billion-dollar package of affordable housing projects that would receive low-income housing tax credits as a tool for funding their construction.

Since then, Martin and others said, the city’s housing and planning departments have stipulated that Community Builders must revise its plan, in part pushing the parking entrance off Western and onto an alley on the opposite side of the lot, stretching north from Leland Avenue. They have also stated concern about providing low-income housing tax credits to fund a parking lot.

The existing parking lot on the site. Via Dennis Rodkin

Will Woodley, a Chicago-based regional vice president at The Community Builders, a nationwide firm, did not respond to a request for comment.

The city’s departments of housing and planning emailed Crain’s a prepared statement that said Chicago’s “Equitable Transit-Oriented Development Policy calls for development near transit to maximize density, maximize affordability and minimize parking. An example which embodies these principles in action is the Emmett Street development in Logan Square, which officially opens later this month with 100 affordable housing units on a former city-owned parking lot next to the Logan Square Blue line stop. Zero public parking spots were replaced.”

The Western Avenue proposal would replace the surface spaces with roughly the same number, on the building’s second floor. From the statement, this appears to be City Hall’s sticking point on the proposal.

Martin and residents said City Hall is taking a rigid position, declining to compromise in order to meet the specific needs of the site.

The desire to reduce or eliminate parking on the site "is not codified as policy," Martin said. "It's a preference. I get that, but we need to look at the existing situation and see what fits."

Foucher said City Hall is "making us choose between supporting affordable housing and supporting local businesses," some of whose customers rely on the parking lot at Western and Leland avenues.

Moving the parking entrance off Western would eliminate the driveway, or curb cut, on a stretch of the road that is a designated P-Street, or pedestrian-friendly street.

“Let’s not let a curb cut stop affordable housing from getting built,” Martin said. He said the cost of redesigning the building and engineering a cantilevered section over the alley “would be better spent on adding more affordable units to this project.”

On Thursday, five civic groups from the surrounding neighborhoods sent a letter to Mayor Lori Lightfoot, city housing commissioner Marisa Novara, city planning commissioner Maurice Cox and Martin requesting that they fast-track approval of the project with its existing Western Avenue curb cut and with a sixth floor added, for a total of four affordable housing floors, about 70 units.

Several Lincoln Square residents said they feel frustrated by the impasse, given that the concept of putting affordable housing on the old parking lot is something virtually everyone agrees on.

“We absolutely need affordable housing in Lincoln Square,” said Heather Smith, an urban planner and adjunct in the geography department at DePaul University who has lived in the neighborhood since 2013. “This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to turn city-owned land in an affluent neighborhood. It should be full steam ahead.”

The Community Builders first proposed to build on the parking site in spring 2020.

Foucher said “the vast majority of people in Lincoln Square would like to see this (development) happen.” She said she and others are acutely aware that many middle-income people can’t afford to live in popular Lincoln Square, where the median sale price of a house was $836,500 in 2021, according to the Chicago Association of Realtors, and the median price of a condo was $325,000. Teardowns of smaller houses and conversions of two-flats into single-family homes have reduced the naturally occuring affordable housing in the neighborhood.

The parking lot site is half a block from the CTA’s Western Avenue Brown Line station and close to bus lines on Western and Lawrence avenues, making it a transit-oriented site.

On top of that, “you can walk to five grocery stores from there,” Foucher said.

“We don’t understand the delay when the community, the alderman and the local businesses are all speaking with one voice,” said Adam Kingsley, an attorney and 20-year resident who chairs the planning and zoning committee of Heart of Lincoln Square Neighbors Association.

“This is not a situation where the neighbors don’t want affordable housing coming in,” Kingsley said. “We want it, but it isn't happening.”