Quote:
Originally Posted by Khantilever
This is also risky. Look at what happened the last time the city zoning map was re-drawn, early 2000s. Much of the city was downzoned. The risk of eliminating aldermanic privilege and re-drawing the map is that we end up with a very tightly drawn map that is also inflexible.
You look at spot zoning and see arbitrariness and corruption. But it shows something else too. It shows flexibility. I'm very nervous about the changes coming down the line, because as much as we complain the fact is no major city in the US is as easy to build in as Chicago. And I have no doubt aldermanic privilege plays a huge role in that. Not only does it give an incentive for aldermen to listen to developers, but it's also easier to lobby an alderman for a single parcel's zoning change than to lobby the Planning Department to upzone an entire neighborhood.
Rather than eliminate aldermanic privilege outright, all we need is an appeals process--as Lightfoot has proposed. That only adds more upward flexibility in zoning and can help fight corruption.
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I'll admit that my position has evolved on this now that I've returned to life on the south side, meaning many train rides and drives through desolate neighborhoods with vacant lots and collapsing buildings but a whole range of infrastructure to maintain. I'm just not worried about allowing tons of density on the north side for a city whose population is at best stagnant or declining (perhaps total demand for households/housing units is steady due to demographic shifts).
Having a vibrant and fully developed mixed-use core/central area is important and benefits the entire city, but where existing infrastructure is already at capacity throughout the north and northwest side, what's the citywide benefit in allowing more housing there rather than gradually letting demand spread out to maybe, just maybe, salvage some of the numerous collapsing areas that already have great downtown access?
If our long term concern is to build anything anywhere and just let Englewood, Park Manor, Gresham, and Roseland completely rot and disintegrate into nothingness, let's at least be up front about that and get it over with since there will be a lot more schools to close and transit lines to shut down.
I also cannot emphasize enough the degree to which Chicago - the city and the region -
do not have an affordable housing problem; certainly not one that is driven by supply constraints, to any degree. There are a handful of hot neighborhoods that have gotten very expensive.