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Originally Posted by the urban politician
Agree with this. The whole issue here is Aldermen from outside the ward not caving in to Aldermanic “prerogative”.
The question is why they don’t do this to Reilly? He is clearly being a hack in regards to 400 N LSD
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I feel like a lot of people are missing the obvious here...the election is the issue. Cappleman is facing a ton of heat in his ward from challengers saying that he's been facilitating gentrification in Uptown by giving developers a pass on building affordable housing; instead letting them just contribute cash to the fund.
His counter-argument to those accusations, as of the last debate or whatever they call it where the candidates make a pitch to the public, was that the affordable housing developed has an income floor of $30,000 that wouldn't help the folks in Uptown that need it since they don't make enough. He's also argued that Uptown is pulling more than its fair share of the load for affordable housing and other wards need to pitch in. If you look at Cappleman's comment on this development he asked Sterling Bay to provide more housing for folks earning less than $30,000...which is consistent with comments he just made to his constituents.
His challengers have also said that he hasn't done enough to involve the community in his decision making process. He's tried to argue that he has involved a wide range of community groups and stakeholders in the development of the ward but he has no control over who those groups send as their representatives (challengers argued that those representatives lack diversity). So once again Cappleman is following through on the practices he just espoused by asking Hopkins to involve his constituents in the development process.
Giving in to Hopkins and SB and rubber-stamping the Lincoln Yards proposal would give the accusations made by Cappleman's detractors traction that he's developer friendly, facilitates gentrification (regardless of whether that's true for Lincoln Yards) and helps developers inside and outside of his ward avoid providing more than a token amount of affordable housing.