Quote:
Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright
If this were an actual attempt at finding the best deal to provide the most housing, he would have led a public planning process with full open bidding. There is no way Related or Holsten or Habitat wouldn't have snapped this site up for $1 and probably required no TIF to build it. Hell I'm 100% certain the city could probably sell this lot for a discounted price ($2 or $3 million) to a real affordable developer who would then construct the same exact building but saving the City $10 million.
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I guess I don't see a better option for this lot given the political realities. It's a pretty decent chunk of housing, it's appropriately dense for being on top of a transit station, and it makes the local progressives all warm and fuzzy.
Yeah, no doubt there was backroom dealing... but that's how the game is played in this city.
I don't see a market-rate developer being able to cut a deal for this lot, even if it was a normal alderman like Hopkins or Burnett. The sale of the land and the zoning change both require the input of the alderman, and the developer has no "as-of-right" option for leverage since they don't control the land. Progressives would come out and protest (since they're smart enough to realize their elected representative holds all the cards) and then they'd start whining about how service workers need convenient parking and we need to keep the land as parking.