In a move heating town-gown tensions to a boiling point, Northwestern filed a lawsuit in federal court Monday seeking to prevent Evanston from enforcing the ordinance that established the Northeast Evanston Historic District.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Chicago, claims that Evanston violated NU’s
14th Amendment rights to equal protection and due process when it voted in May to establish the district. The suit asks the court not only to invalidate the district, but also to prevent the city from enforcing the ordinance that put the district in place.
According to the city’s preservation ordinance, property owners in the district must file an application if they want to make changes to the “design, material or the exterior architectural appearance” of the building. City staff usually approves routine or emergency work immediately, but more complicated renovations must be reviewed by the city’s Preservation Commission. If the commission rejects a property owner’s request, an appeal can be made to City Council.
The university decided to sue Evanston because administrators believe the city included more than 40 NU-owned properties in the district to punish NU for historically refusing to pay property taxes, NU Senior Vice President for Business and Finance Eugene Sunshine said in a statement Monday.
“The city has lost sight of its obligation to treat the university fairly, and the enactment of the district is yet another attempt to force the university to contribute,” Sunshine said in the statement.
Because of its 1851 state charter, NU is exempt from paying property taxes that the city uses to fund services such as police and fire protection, road maintenance, and parks and recreation. While Evanston residents and NU administrators have debated for more than 100 years whether the university should do more to ensure the city’s financial security, the two parties have made little headway in recent negotiations.
Specifically, the suit alleges the city violated the university’s right to equal protection because its inclusion of NU-owned buildings in the district was “motivated by vindictiveness” over the university’s refusal to pay property taxes to Evanston. The university contends that those rights also were violated because the city was not legitimately interested in establishing historic districts and treated NU differently from other property owners involved in the debate.
The suit claims Evanston violated the university’s right to due process, calling the establishment of the district “arbitrary, capricious and irrational.” It also claims that hearings conducted on the district were unfairly biased against NU and did not address the district ultimately adopted by the city.
But Ald. Arthur Newman (1st) said the district did not unfairly treat NU and that it affected property owners even-handedly. He said the Northeast Evanston district’s regulations were no different than those in Evanston’s two other historic districts.
“There are homeowners all over Evanston that are subject to the preservation ordinance,” Newman said.
Calling the suit a “frivolous claim,” Newman said the university was “never going to improve relations with the city using this tactic.”
“There’s a lot of politics written all over this lawsuit,” Newman said.
AN ONGOING BATTLE
The lawsuit comes at a critical juncture in the always volatile relationship between NU and Evanston, with both parties engaged in fierce rhetoric amid a tense political environment.
Negotiations between city and university officials regarding NU’s additional financial contributions to Evanston are set to begin soon; the city’s Budget Committee is considering levying an employee head tax on NU and the city’s two hospitals; and the council’s Planning and Development Committee is considering a zoning amendment that could inhibit NU’s expansion by requiring any new construction to provide adequate parking within 1,000 feet of the site.
Also, City Council elections will be held in the spring, with campaigns kicking off in the coming months. Last week, Kellogg Prof. Allan Drebin announced his intention to run for the First Ward seat against the long-entrenched Newman.
Although Kathleen Brenniman, an attorney for Evanston, declined to comment Monday, the city’s response to the lawsuit is expected to be filed within a month.
Ald. Steven Bernstein (4th) said he was disappointed relations between Evanston and NU had reached such a low point and called the lawsuit a “real frustration.”
Ald. Stephen Engelman, who would not comment on the city’s legal stance, agreed.
“It is unfortunate that the relationship between the city and the university has degenerated to such a level that differences between them cannot be worked out and one party must resort to the courts,” said Engelman, who voted against the district with Alds. Edmund Moran (6th) and Dennis Drummer (2nd).
Some aldermen said the university’s accusations that the district was imposed to punish administrators for fair-share disagreements were unfounded.
“The historic district has nothing to do with anything else but the historic district,” Bernstein said. “It doesn’t treat (NU) any differently from anyone else.”
But Moran disagreed with Bernstein, saying he wasn’t surprised that NU had filed the suit. The process leading up to the establishment of the district was flawed, he said.
“I don’t think anyone can be surprised,” he said. “(The proposal) had less to do with the historic district than it had to do with NU.”
CHANGING BOUNDARIES
City Council voted 6-3 on May 22 to approve the local district after amending its northern boundary twice. The first amendment moved the boundary south from the Evanston/Wilmette border to Lincoln Street, while the final shift moved it a half-block south to an alley between Lincoln and Colfax streets. The other boundaries remained the same: Emerson Street to the south, Sheridan Road to the east and Sherman or Ridge avenues to the west.
The boundary change cut out about half of the homeowners in the district — most of whom opposed it — and resulted in a district 30 percent smaller than the area originally proposed. Forty-two of the buildings in the district are NU-owned.
Mayor Lorraine Morton in June vetoed the council’s vote to approve the district, citing a desire to re-establish community harmony and her feeling that establishing the district would “stymie or eliminate” negotiations between the city and NU.
Morton, who could not be reached for comment Monday, said she also was concerned about potential lawsuits.
Ignoring her warnings, City Council voted 6-3 to override the mayor’s veto.
The mayor was not alone in her objections to the district. NU officials, too, had vocalized their opposition to the district before consideration of the proposal even landed on the council floor.
In early April, Bienen sent 10,600 letters to NU alumni, faculty, staff and students that explained the university’s stance against the district. The university also hired architectural experts to explain to the city why NU’s buildings should not be included in the district.
The city was not convinced.
While administrators have yet to meet with city officials to discuss the ramifications of the district since it was enacted, Sunshine said in Monday’s statement that the university believes all reasonable means of compromise have been exhausted.
“We file this lawsuit very reluctantly,” Sunshine said in the statement. “We offered reasonable compromise proposals throughout the discussion that would have permitted inclusion of some of the university’s property in a district, starting with the original district proposed for the National Register of Historic Places and continuing through the local district process. However, all our suggestions were summarily rejected.”
DIRECT ATTACK?
A historic district was officially listed on the National Register of Historic Places in August 1999 after members of the Northeast Evanston Historic District Association proved the area contains 474 buildings that are
significant, representative examples of the architectural styles dominant from the 1860s to 1949.
The university’s administrators advocated the national district, proposed by the Register, because it enforces fewer regulations than does the local district.
Most NU buildings, including all those along Sheridan Road, were excluded from the national district because they are separated from the rest of the district by parking lots, said Mary McWilliams, one of the NEHDA board members who drafted the proposal.
McWilliams said the group wanted to include those buildings in the national district, but provisions set by the Register prohibited it from doing so. Because the criteria for local nomination of a district are different, the group was able to add those properties to the local proposal.
NU administrators said many of the buildings added to the local district, such as the Foster-Walker Complex and Blomquist Recreation Center, are not architecturally significant and should not have been included.
“I’m sure there are many students who love Foster-Walker, but I think you’d have a hard time making an argument that it is a historic piece of work,” said Al Cubbage, NU’s vice president for university relations.
“The historic district as finally approved makes a mockery of the original intent to recognize the architecture and development of homes in the area and of the city’s entire historic district process,” Sunshine said in the statement.
Administrators also pointed to statements made by aldermen in previous council meetings — statements they say indicate an overall animosity toward NU and a specific desire to use the district to hurt the university.
Newman, who voted in favor of the district and the override, said at the council’s May 22 meeting that his main motivation in voting for the district was to preserve the NU-owned historic buildings that line Sheridan Road and to prevent the university from expanding westward.
“If this ordinance prevents Northwestern from purchasing one more house west of Sheridan Road, then it’s a victory for the tax rolls,” Newman said at the meeting. “Some of the houses may go down, but they’ll go down because of the approval of the historic preservation committee.”
Newman said Monday he thinks all parties, including NU, were treated fairly in the discussions of and eventual establishment of the district.
NEHDA board members worked hard to create a fair proposal and the Preservation Commission studied it at length before handing it off to City Council, Newman said. Aldermen also heavily weighed the evidence before making a decision, he said.
COMMUNITY COMMITMENT
Regardless of the lawsuit, Sunshine said, the university will continue to foster partnerships with other institutions in Evanston, including the city’s school districts and businesses.
“We have strong relationships that provide financial or educational support to many Evanston institutions,” Sunshine said in the statement. “These partnerships benefit the community in many ways and we will continue to look for ways of strengthening them.”
And Sunshine said he and other NU administrators hope to eventually build a stronger relationship with members of the council.
“Despite filing this lawsuit, the university remains committed to trying to develop a similar partnership with the city to the ones we have with other local institutions,” he said. “The city council and the university together can do much for the betterment of Evanston.”
Prof. Drebin, who said he first became interested in running for the council seat when he observed the hearings and debates about the historic district, said he had always thought the process was somewhat flawed.
“The fruits of that process are the lawsuit,” Drebin said. “Regardless of whether the historic district now is good or bad, this could have been a better process.”
But Drebin said the university’s case probably is going to be weakened because NU has not yet submitted any requests to make architectural changes to the Preservation Commission. The suit would be stronger if the university had submitted a request and been denied by the commission and the council, he said.
Drebin also likened the town-gown debate to a war, saying the university’s lawsuit probably will only cause the city to escalate its anti-NU actions. But if the courts eventually intervene, the council could treat the university more favorably, he said.
Moran agreed with Drebin and said the relationship is never going to get better unless the council significantly changes its policies regarding NU.
“What you reap, you sow,” Moran said. “The continued bad blood in university and city relations will continue to be played out until the city government gets off the track of attacking Northwestern.”
The Daily’s Ericka Mellon and Negar Tekeei contributed to this report.
