Link to full article at Evanston Roundtable
After attending approximately a dozen community meetings in Evanston regarding proposed changes to the city’s comprehensive plan and zoning code, it is clear to me that the Illinois General Assembly must pass Gov. JB Pritzker’s BUILD Plan because local governments cannot solve Illinois’ housing shortage without state-level intervention.
In January 2024, Evanston launched its plan, Envision Evanston 2045, to simultaneously update its comprehensive plan and zoning code. Since Envision Evanston was announced, there have been dozens of community engagement sessions with a city-hired consultant, focus group meetings, ward meetings, land use commission meetings, strategic housing committee meetings, City Council meetings and robust social discourse surrounding the project.
Envision Evanston was a key issue in Evanston’s 2025 municipal elections, incited a political campaign against the mayor’s land use commission appointments, routinely features mobilized factions in both support and opposition of the project at public meetings and has cost the city at least $750,000 in consulting contracts.
After all of this time, money, and effort, Evanston passed a new comprehensive plan in January 2026 and hopes to have a revised zoning code approved by the end of 2027. This process has been excellently chronicled by the Evanston RoundTable’s Alex Harrison.
The crux of the public debate over Envision Evanston is the degree to which the updated plan and code should allow for increased housing density, often known as “upzoning.” The most steadfast opponents of the project say Evanston has a unique character that drew them here and that the city is completely built out. I witnessed one man state on the public record that Evanston is “full.” The most ardent supporters of the plan are pushing for up to four housing units being allowed to be built by-right on any residentially owned lot to economically grow the city, utilize public transit, and to combat high home purchase and rental costs. Much of the public is somewhere between the ends of that spectrum.
This story is not unique to Evanston. Local debate over housing development is a nationwide issue. There is ample literature showing that public input on land use decisions disproportionately comes from wealthier landowners and skews against allowing new and denser housing construction. However, Envision Evanston’s yearslong, politically contentious process is a perfect encapsulation of why the state needs to pass statewide zoning standards.
First, the process Evanston has faced is too long and costly. If we are truly in a housing crisis, five years to implement a local government response is not nearly fast enough for effective action to combat housing supply and cost issues. The process to implement the changes themselves come at taxpayer expense in the form of consultant contracts and numerous hourslong public meetings.
Second, local zoning reform pits neighbors against one another. Opponents view reform as a zero-sum game.
Zoning reform supporters argue that increased allowable housing types citywide decreases the burden on one particular neighborhood to produce the required housing units for the city’s growth and spreads more affordable units across the city more evenly and equitably.
The reform opponents who I have seen give testimony at public meetings have argued that allowing more housing in single-family areas will destroy the character of their neighborhoods and decrease their property values (which is false). The result is that these sides see themselves in direct opposition, which strains civility and turns neighbors against one another.
Third, Evanston’s reforms are woefully inadequate to solve our state’s greater housing shortage. Illinois faces a statewide housing shortage of 142,000 units, with an additional 227,000 units needed to meet projected housing demand in the next five years. If Evanston’s City Council were to rezone the city to the maximum extent the supporters call for, Evanston would create the zoned capacity for a fraction of statewide required units. Considering that Evanston and Oak Park are among the only suburban municipalities voluntarily considering local zoning reform, the current land use system controlled by local governments will never result in the construction of the necessary amount of homes in the Chicagoland area or statewide.
The current political status quo that keeps the overwhelming majority of suburban land reserved for single-family housing is the result of land-use regulation being completely controlled by local governments. Each municipality acts in its own purported self-interest by keeping its zoning code as it is, but the net result of that self-interest is harmful to the greater region.
The result is that each municipality points at one another about where housing should be built, with no one actually stepping up to build it themselves. The only way to achieve housing production at the scale necessary to meet the state’s needs is to break the status quo and require all municipalities, particularly in Cook and the collar counties, to allow for more housing to be built. Governing housing at the state-level removes the need for a municipality to undergo a yearslong, politically charged process to change land use regulations. The BUILD plan addresses all of the above problems, creating statewide, streamlined minimum zoning standards for the types of housing that can be built on any residentially zoned lot.
I applaud the City of Evanston and its residents for grappling with housing affordability and attempting to craft a local response. But the reality is that Illinois has a massive housing shortage, and the only way out is state, not local, action. I urge members of the Illinois House and Senate to pass the BUILD plan to help tackle housing supply and affordability at scale.
Dan Lev works in Evanston as a practicing real estate attorney; he also is a former municipal attorney at a private law firm.