The city could create a public land bank, allow extra density or offer tax credits to make sure a controversial Pilsen development proposal satisfies affordable housing requirements, advisers from the Washington, D.C.-based Urban Land Institute suggested in a public meeting Thursday night.
In June, the city’s planning department hired the institute to fly a panel of volunteer real estate and urban policy experts into Chicago, hoping a third-party perspective could thaw a stalemate on an 8-acre property that’s become a battleground between neighbors, developer Property Markets Group and the alderman who controls the land’s fate.
The New York-based developer expressed interest in the property near 16th Street and Peoria Avenue as far back as 2013, eventually buying it from Midwest Jesuits in early 2017. The firm’s “Parkworks” proposal would build 465 apartments and 15,000 square feet of retail on the site.
But the plan ran afoul of Alderman Danny Solis (25th), who said it would dishonor a 2006 agreement he made with residents not to allow any new residential development in the neighborhood with less than 21 percent affordable housing. (Property Markets Group principal Noah Gottlieb has said the development would meet that benchmark, but some of the units would be built off-site.)
Solis got the City Council to downzone the property in order to block the Parkworks plan, and the developer countered by suing the city. The lawsuit is still pending.
On Thursday, Tony Salazar, president of the Los Angeles-based development firm McCormack Baron Salazar, told a group of Pilsen neighbors that he had “no problem” with their affordable housing mandate, but 21 percent would be “hard to get to” without a bag of sweeteners from the city.
Weeks ahead of the meeting, Urban Land Institute executive Tom Eitler told The Real Deal city taxpayers could help bankroll the project directly through grants or tax credits. Salazar left the door open to those ideas Thursday while suggesting other perks, like allowing extra density, relaxing parking requirements or helping neighbors launch a “community land bank.”
“We see a land-banking process as a primary vehicle for the neighborhood to start taking control of land, and buy resources for the community,” Salazar said. “It can be run by one organization, or it can be made up of a bunch of organizations.”
Salazar and Washington, D.C. urban planner Rogelio Flores also said the developer should consider building a 15,000-square-foot public plaza at the southwest corner of the site, which would face the beginning of the city’s planned Paseo trail. They cited San Diego’s Chicano Park as a potential model.
Audience members repeatedly heckled Salazar and Flores. Former Pilsen Alliance director Byron Sigcho, an ardent challenger to both Solis and the developer who has announced his own campaign for alderman, said any city subsidies for the project would amount to “the community paying for luxury housing with taxpayer money.”
Solis will re-approach Property Markets Group and “bring back the concerns” aired at the meeting, according to Francisco Lassio, the alderman’s chief of staff.
“We’re going to see what we can do to make it more pleasant to the community,” Lassio said as the meeting ended. “Because, as you can see here, people are not in favor.”
Lassio added Solis has not approved or disapproved any of the institute panel’s recommendations, which the staffer called “generalized.”
A city planning commissioner said the department will withhold judgement on the recommendations until they’re carved into a formal report, which is set to be published in the next month.
Property Markets Group officials did not attend Thursday’s meeting, and they declined to comment for this story.