Chicago’s dire financial position will keep getting worse without drastic action. Making it easier to build homes and expand the city’s tax base is critical to addressing this budget gap. As housing costs continue rising, Chicago must make more homes. Failing to build new homes steals opportunities from families and pushes higher costs of living onto current and future Chicagoans.
The problem is exacerbated by aldermanic prerogative and deference to community groups that rarely reflect the neighborhood’s actual composition. Frustratingly, even when solutions are approved, another issue exists: neighbors filing lawsuits.
On the North Side, two different groups are suing to overturn city zoning decisions. An old adage about litigation says that “If you can’t win on merit, then you try to win on procedure.” This fits the lawsuits from the 1660 LaSalle Condominium Association in Old Town and the Edgewater Residents for Responsible Development.
In July, the 1660 LaSalle Condominium Association filed suit against the city and the developer of Old Town Canvas, a 349-home development near multiple CTA stops. Despite three years of community engagement, the lawsuit claims that the city “usurped the community engagement process” — although nearly a dozen public meetings took place and remain viewable online.
In October, the City Council approved the Broadway Land Use Framework, permitting more housing along a busy commercial corridor in Uptown. The plan aims to spur new development nesr four recently modernized CTA stations. During the yearlong community engagement process, Edgewater Residents for Responsible Development formed as opposition to the land use plan, purchased billboards decrying the proposed changes and filed a lawsuit in January, claiming the city “failed to give proper notice” of the zoning changes.
In these cases, each group claims to be “saving” their neighborhoods: Both include the word “save” in their website domains. If Chicago’s recent budget fiasco were any indication, saving our city means growing our tax base.
The plaintiffs may believe they are “saving” their neighborhoods, but their litigation harms Chicago by denying new housing and raising the cost of living. To truly save our neighborhoods, the first step should be dismissing these lawsuits with prejudice. When community groups litigate to block housing, it is a form of generational theft against current and future residents.
Josh Chodor, Urban Planning and Policy graduate student, University of Illinois Chicago