After hours of deliberation, City Council adopted Evanston’s new Strategic Housing Plan in a 7-2 vote at its Monday meeting.
The vote followed a lengthy discussion of amendments suggested by councilmembers in the past month. Alds. Clare Kelly (1st) and Parielle Davis (7th) voted against the plan.
Nicknamed Housing4All, the plan aims to create concerted guidance for addressing housing challenges around affordability and racial and economic segregation in Evanston. During a prolonged public comment section, some residents expressed support for the plan with the suggested amendments, while others urged councilmembers to approve the original version.
Evanston resident Claudia Garcia-Rojas (TGS ’19, Weinberg M.A. ’15, Doctorate ’23) emphasized that arguments used by those opposed to the original plan were based on feeling rather than fact. She said these community members lacked evidence for their beliefs, including the idea that just cause tenant protections will discourage development.
“This is a moment when housing policy should be guided by evidence, by facts,” Garcia-Rojas said. “Fact: losing housing, whether through eviction or involuntary non-renewal, destabilizes families, schools and employment. Feeling: non-renewals are simply a routine part of the rental market.”
During their April 13 meeting, councilmembers voted to table the plan until Monday night. Between meetings, several councilmembers proposed a total of 64 amendments, 50 of which were Kelly’s alone.
Planning Manager Elizabeth Williams gave a presentation that separated the amendments into three categories: those consistent with the Envision Evanston 2045 comprehensive plan, those that were inconsistent with the plan or had limited information and those for individual consideration.
Following discussion and changes to an amendment to include language that would expand the definition of co-living arrangements to include dorm-style housing, Council accepted all amendments in the first category recommended by staff for approval.
Kelly said some of her amendments aimed to change language in the plan to better describe and address gentrification.
“I do think that this whole thing needs to be rewritten so that we are addressing the eroding economic diversity of our city,” she said in reference to an amendment that Council later rejected.
Councilmembers then addressed the rest of the amendments one by one. They voted to keep amendments that would require further assessment of certain initiatives and create more specifications around goals and revenue. They rejected several others, including two that would have struck any mention of “just cause” from the plan. “Just cause” provisions prohibit landlords from evicting tenants and not renewing contracts without a valid reason.
Councilmembers ultimately accepted, at least in part, 25 of the 64 proposed amendments. One of the most disputed provisions of the plan remained, which includes the goal of permitting and encouraging greater city-wide density. Councilmembers struck down several amendments aimed at limiting density in single-family home neighborhoods.
During public comment, Evanston resident Sheila Sullivan, the vice president of the Southeast Evanston Association, expressed her support for Housing4All, though she said she believed that without the amendments, the Strategic Housing Plan “undercut” the Envision Evanston comprehensive plan.
“These amendments would strengthen the plan by improving transparency, accountability and public trust while establishing important guardrails for future implementation,” Sullivan said.
Still, many residents advocated for the plan’s approval without the amendments. Evanston resident Sam Gaiman criticized one amendment, arguing it tried to increase the share of housing specifically for low and middle-income residents rather than creating new units generally.
“The way you fix a supply problem is you can increase the supply,” he said. “You create new housing units. I support all housing. I support tall housing, short housing, housing for the rich, housing for the poor, dense housing. Please let them build.”
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