http://www.suntimes.com/news/politic...21abla.article
Committee green lights plan for Abla Homes
May 21, 2007
BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter
The second phase of a $750 million plan to transform the CHA’s Abla Homes into a thriving mixed-income community was advanced by a City Council committee Monday, but not before the new sheriff in town laid down the law.
“The autocratic method of making decisions is over and the bottom-up process of making decisions is here,” newly elected Ald. Bob Fioretti (2nd) told the Finance Committee, delivering what sounded like a campaign stump speech.
“We should not build until the voices of our community have been heard. That’s the way things are going to be done in the 2nd Ward from now on, whether or not the special interests like it….I’m not in the business of making a few people rich.”
Last week, Fioretti held up a $15 million tax increment financing subsidy to finance acquisition, demolition, remediation and public improvements in Phase 2 of the project known as Roosevelt Square.
On Monday, Fioretti allowed the project to go through after learning that $31 million worth of expiring tax credits were hanging in the balance.
But Fioretti made it clear he would demand a series of “side letters” before Wednesday, when the full Council is expected to sign off on the project.
Fioretti wants: Minority participation well beyond the 25 percent that developers plan; a guarantee of jobs for local residents; and assurances that siding and public utilities are aesthetically pleasing to area residents.
“When I started my campaign, I said that people who live in the community I want to remain in the community. We find them jobs. This is a unique opportunity to have people within the area have jobs,” he said.
Chicago Housing Authority CEO Sharon Gist-Gilliam said the CHA has made every effort to increase minority contracting beyond the bare minimum.
But she said, “At some point, it becomes uneconomical to constantly break jobs into smaller and smaller [bites]….It would be helpful to have some larger minority firms out there and have more than two or three minority general contractors.”
Phase 2 of Roosevelt Square will have 432 units and a pricetag of $163 million. Of that number, 185 are rental units and 247 are for sale, at both market and affordable rates.
The massive project runs from Blue Island to Ashland and Taylor to 14th Street.
During Monday’s Finance Committee meeting, the last before the new Council was sworn in, Gilliam warned aldermen to get used to her appeals.
“We will be coming back to you for years on end as we march through this project. Every couple of years, we’ll be back here for approval of more tax credits, probably more TIF — assuming there’s any left to put in projects out there — and acquisition of more city-owned land,” she said.
“It’s just a very slow, very tedious and….an exceedingly expensive process to build new housing in any urban area.”
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It'll be interesting to have an Alderman (Fioretti) who cares so much about development in the city. Obviously it's too early to tell if it's a good or bad thing (i.e. I sure hope it doesn't lead to lots of cancellations and developers just giving up), but I'm cautiously optimistic about the level involvement he's apparently going to take with all developments.