After two years of contentious debate, Evanston is turning toward a rezoning initiative that has already divided residents and defined an entire municipal election cycle.
Last month, City Council narrowly passed its new comprehensive plan, the first step in the city’s broader Envision Evanston 2045 initiative, which looks to define the city’s development for years to come. Throughout the process, a select group of residents has attended meeting after meeting to express concerns over the plan’s timeline and intent, particularly around the language it uses to describe Evanston’s housing goals.
Impassioned residents resist zoning plans
As the city begins reexamining its zoning code, which was adopted in 1993, these residents are pushing back on the scope and direction of the proposed rewrite, arguing the process has reflected predetermined outcomes rather than a consensus among community members.
“The adopted plan emphasizes future density scenarios and regulatory changes, far more than it reflects what many residents consistently express, which is preservation of neighborhood character, scale and predictability,” said John Storey Williamson, a 3rd Ward resident, commercial property manager and realtor. “This plan reads more like a platform for housing production policy than a reflection of Evanson’s built reality.”
Storey Williamson is part of the Evanston Action Coalition, a civic organization founded in response to Envision Evanston that he said focuses on “maintaining Evanston’s quality of life.” Storey Williamson and others favor a more “incremental” approach to zoning, as opposed to a wholesale rewrite.
Through Freedom of Information Act requests, the EAC has worked to develop a timeline of what they think went wrong throughout the Envision Evanston process.
Members of the coalition argue that the shift toward zoning reform emerged early in the comprehensive planning process and was driven less by resident input than by external pressure and political incentives.
Storey Williamson said the city had begun applying for federal housing grants before drafting the comprehensive plan, using language that assumed substantial zoning changes would occur. He argued that this signaled the city had already embraced upzoning as a policy goal before it publicly identified it as such.
Beyond any single procedural concern, Storey Williamson and others take issue with the assumption that density will create more affordable housing. They worry that an influx of market-rate housing will accelerate the displacement of current Evanston residents.
Their concern is rooted in a particular policy goal outlined in the comprehensive plan and in the language of Evanston’s new strategic housing plan, commonly known as Housing4All, which the Housing and Community Development Committee recently recommended to City Council for approval.
One objective included in the comprehensive plan’s housing chapter suggests the city should aim to “Increase housing supply and affordable housing choices at all income levels.” This would include expanding by-right residential development, such as small-scale multi-unit housing, in all residential districts and higher-density housing in mixed-use and downtown areas.
The reasoning behind this, explained in the Housing4All plan, draws on examples from Minneapolis and New Rochelle, N.Y., cities that have implemented policies to increase housing supply. The plan says that updating Evanston’s zoning code can expand housing options and curb rising rent prices.
“Zoning code updates will foster inclusive growth while advancing sustainability and reducing the pressures that drive up housing costs,” the plan reads.
Seventh Ward resident Kiera Kelly disagrees, citing one study conducted by Georgetown Law’s Center on Poverty and Inequality, which found that low-income renters faced rent increases, while rent for wealthier households stayed relatively stable in cities with aggressive housing growth.
Proponents advocate for new zoning, multi-unit housing
Still, a growing body of research suggests the opposite is true — and so does a separate contingent of Evanston residents, who herald density.
Scott Roberts, a 3rd Ward resident, co-founded the Evanston organization Say YES! to Duplexes and said he is excited by the prospect of diversifying the city’s housing stock.
“We have a housing crisis in the country and especially in Evanston,” Roberts said. “Lots of people want to live here, but they’re being priced out, and part of that is because of a choked supply.”
Housing advocates point to Minneapolis as an example of how expanding housing supply can work in practice. The city made a series of zoning changes beginning in 2009 and officially eliminated exclusive single-family zoning in December 2018. A study from the Pew Research Center found that rents in the city stayed the same as more apartments were built, even as the rest of the state saw prices rise.
Other research suggests that expanding market-rate housing helps existing renters by slowing rent growth, reducing displacement and strengthening neighborhood quality.
Support for these ideas remains strong in Evanston. Although his challenger campaigned against Envision Evanston in last year’s municipal elections, Mayor Daniel Biss still won reelection in a landslide. Ald. Jonathan Nieuwsma (4th) said the results show there is “widespread support” for zoning reform.
Housing debates have grown heated
While Roberts advocates for a diversity of housing options more broadly, his group specifically focuses on advocating for duplexes, which he described as a “compromise” to “lower the heat” in housing debates.
Despite this framing, arguments over housing in Evanston have remained contentious, in part because they have been framed in moral terms.
In December 2024, Biss said it would be “immoral” to delay the comprehensive plan, arguing that the city could not afford to wait to address urgent housing needs.
Kelly said that demonization of people who hold different beliefs about housing is “really hurtful” and has gotten to the “point of bullying.”
“We are speaking as people who love this town and also believe in having housing that’s affordable and addressing some of the problems we see,” Kelly said. “We just disagree with a movement that requires such drastic transformation, potentially, in our city.”
Mary Rosinski, a real estate broker who has vocally opposed much of the Envision Evanston process, echoed her sentiment.
Rosinski hesitated to share that she lives in the 7th Ward because she said residents of that ward are frequently “put down” for their views.
“People say, ‘Oh… they’re always whining.’ Well, that’s because we’re always under attack,” Rosinski said. “It’s a disservice to so many residents who care so much and put so much into this town.”
Rosinski added that the residents opposing the upzoning initiatives are simply trying to “protect our neighborhoods.”
Timeline of zoning changes is uncertain
Amid this continued debate, city officials maintain that addressing housing affordability remains a key priority.
While highlighting the importance of the city’s affordable housing work, Biss told The Daily that he is “really proud” to do “what’s right,” even when it is politically fraught.
“I’m really passionate about the work that we’re doing to make housing more affordable in Evanston, to expand the supply of housing, which is a necessary part of the effort to make housing affordable across income levels and across the city,” Biss said. “It’s been a tough fight, and I don’t think it’s any secret that my reelection campaign was tougher and more vigorous because of it.”
According to Nieuwsma, the timeframe for the rezoning process is uncertain.
The draft scope of services the city released for public feedback included a timeline that aimed for new zoning provisions to be adopted in 2028. However, that timeline did not make it into the document City Council approved at its Monday meeting.
Still, Nieuwsma said rezoning is “overdue.”
“It’s gonna take a lot of work,” he said. “It’s gonna take a lot of public engagement. And I really am fairly confident that when all is said and done, we will end up with a product that is generally acceptable for most people in Evanston.”
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Related Stories:
— City Council votes 5-4 to pass landmark comprehensive plan
— Envision Evanston faces numerous setbacks throughout January
