Affordable housing will be among the main issues of the Evanston City Council’s meeting tonight, as aldermen consider an affordable-housing development and an ordinance that could require some future developments to include affordable units.
“(It’s) a very big issue in Evanston these days,” said Ald. Edmund Moran (6th). “I’m looking forward to advocating for strong affordable-housing measures.”
The development, proposed by the Housing Opportunity Development Corporation, a not-for-profit organization specializing in affordable housing, will first go before the Planning and Development Committee tonight.
It calls for 27 for-rent units in a four-story building at the corner of Darrow Avenue and Church Street in west Evanston.
The Plan Commission unanimously recommended the Council not approve the proposal, which has been heavily protested by neighbors who said the building would increase crime and decrease property values in the area.
But some aldermen said the Plan Commission’s rejection wasn’t very logical.
“I really don’t understand what the Plan Commission was thinking,” Moran said. “It seemed as though they had bought into the assertion of the opponents of the project that the approval of that project would lead to a concentration of poor people in one project. I have problems with that characterization.”
Moran said 27 units did not constitute a “concentration.”
Ald. Delores Holmes (5th) said the development would be good for her ward and that she would support it despite the Plan Commission’s recommendation.
“I think I’m the better judge,” she said.
Another affordable housing issue on tonight’s agenda is the Inclusionary Housing Ordinance, which would require developers of planned residential developments to make some units affordable for households earning less than Evanston’s median household income of $56,335, according to the city’s Web site.
The number of units has yet to be decided. The Housing Commission has recommended that 15 percent of all units for developments of 25 to 99 units be affordable and 20 percent for developments of 100 or more units.
Aldermen also will discuss an amendment to the city’s smoking ban that would include previously exempt bars and restaurants in the citywide ban on smoking in public places starting July 1.
The amendment passed by a narrow 3-2 vote in the Human Services Committee meeting last week.
“I was hoping that we would bring a 5-0 vote to the council, not just 3-2,” Holmes said.
Ald. Steven Bernstein (4th) and Ald Lionel Jean-Baptiste (2nd) voted against the amendment. They said Evanston restaurants and bars will lose customers to Chicago businesses because Chicago’s anti-smoking ordinance does not go into effect until July 1, 2008.
But Moran said restaurants in other cities that have gone smoke-free have not been hurt by competition from other cities. Some have actually seen an increase in business from patrons who are looking for smoke-free places to dine, he said.
Deerfield, Wilmette and Park Ridge already have smoke-free ordinances of their own.
“There are now so many smoking bans that the economic disadvantage gets blurrier by the day, ” said Jay Terry, Evanston’s director of health and human services.
Reach Jenny Song at [email protected].
