Tag: city council

Prepared remarks: the ordinance to expand ADUs citywide has multiple benefits

June 11, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Alongside representatives from CMAP, Community Investment Corporation and Preservation Compact, ULI Chicago, and the Chicago Association of Realtors, I also spoke at a subject matter hearing on June 11, 2024, to the Chicago City Council’s zoning committee about the necessity to expand accessory dwelling units to be allowed citywide. Read more about the proposed ordinance.

Hello, my name is Steven Vance. I am an urban planner and consultant in Chicago. I am also a member of Urban Environmentalists Illinois. I have been studying, promoting, and collaborating around ADUs for six years. I was on ULI Chicago’s task force, have presented to various groups about building an ADU, and created a free directory on ChicagoCityscape.com that lists local architects and companies who can design and build ADUs. 

1st Ward Alderperson La Spata comments on the proposed ADU expansion ordinance during the subject matter hearing.

Given that background of some of my ADU work I feel that I understand a lot of how the adoption of ADUs in the last three years has fared and can point out future benefits that the city will gain if the proposed ordinance is adopted. I will highlight some of those future benefits.

Removing the maximum coach house size cap. The proposed ordinance would change the cap on how much floor area a coach house could have. Allowing larger coach houses on larger lots will allow more family-sized units with two or more bedrooms. Additionally, larger coach houses can make them more cost effective to build, because of the high fixed costs in building a coach house of any size. The proposed ordinance could facilitate more family-sized coach houses than are currently being built.

Allowing ground level coach houses through the administrative adjustment for parking. The proposed ordinance would allow property owners to build a coach house at grade, meaning it can be accessible. This would make it easier for families to decide to build a small house for an aging family member, who may very well be the current owner, as well as put a dent in the dearth of accessible housing. A second benefit of this change is that ground level construction is significantly cheaper than building atop a garage.

Allowing all-residential buildings in non-residential zones to participate. The proposed ordinance would allow thousands of residential-only buildings that are in B and C zoning districts to add an ADU. The Institute for Housing Studies at DePaul University found that 25 percent of buildings with 5 or more units fit into this category but are currently ineligible. These are the building sizes that are most capable of adding two or more ADUs. If two or more ADUs are built, half must be rented affordably. Adopting this ordinance means those buildings would be able to add ADUs.

Allowing coach house and conversion units on the same lot can also be cost effective for property owners. Either one would likely require a water service or electric service upgrade so it makes sense to make one upgrade to serve multiple new homes.

I believe that the biggest gains in the city’s ADU policy will come from allowing them citywide, in all residential and mixed-use zoning districts. Citywide expansion makes it simpler for the departments to administer, makes all buildings capable of adding an ADU eligible to add an ADU, makes it easier for homeowners to add an additional home to fit their changing household needs, and lets other property owners add to the city’s housing abundance thereby slowing down rent increases that the city is experiencing.

Note: The plan, as explained in Crain’s and the Chicago Tribune, is to vote on the ordinance at the June 25, 2024, zoning committee meeting, and if approved there the City Council would vote at their July meeting. (City Council does not meet in August.)

I wish I wrote a blog about food trucks sometimes: Chicago has made it really difficult for expansion

January 6, 2013 / / 0 Comments

The Flirty Cupcakes food truck. Photo by Andrew Huff. 

Most of my time (because it’s actually my job) is to blog about transportation. This blog is about cities, and cities are about food trucks, so I guess it’s fine. I neither own a food truck, nor patronize them, but I’m fascinated by the process of how city administrations are handling them, whether through some kind of indifference or making regulations that seem only to make running a food truck more difficult than it should be.

At a “mobile food summit” at the University of Chicago in the spring of 2012, I learned from the sponsor Institute for Justice that they were suing cities for passing unconstitutional laws that regulated business not for health and public safety, their duty, but to protect the economic well-being of other businesses. Based on that knowledge, Chicago did this with the food truck ordinance from July 2012.

The Chicago Tribune reports today, in summary form, the current status of this regulation (here’s the full article):

No city licenses for food trucks

The city hasn’t licensed a single food truck for onboard cooking since the practice was approved in July. Some food truck operators say they’re scared off by the extensive red tape they foresee in the application process. Of the 109 entrepreneurs who have applied for Mobile Food Preparer licenses, none has met the city’s requirements.

I looked this up to know more and I found short commentary on Reason magazine’s blog:

The City of the Big Shoulders is hungry. And 109 entreprising folks want to help feed it. Too bad they’re not allowed to.

For example, the Tribune interviewed proprietors, one of whom said, “While most of its provisions are similar to those in other major cities, [Gabriel] Wiesen said, Chicago’s code includes rules on ventilation and gas line equipment that “are meetable but extremely cumbersome and can raise the price of outfitting a truck by $10,000 to $20,000.”

The bit about the regulation possibly being unconstitutional is that the food trucks with this license (which allows them to cook on the truck) must have a GPS device recording their position during retail hours and cannot operate within 200 feet of a brick-and-mortar restaurant (except in designated mobile food truck loading zones, for a maximum of two hours). Restricting where and when a food preparation business can operate is the tricky part: the city doesn’t regulate this for brick-and-mortar restaurants (except for zoning, which is much more lax and is intended to keep incompatible land uses away from each other).

Apparently Chicago needs NATO/G8 conferences to solidify itself as a world class city

January 19, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Photos of people participating in Occupy Chicago, back in October 2011. Photo by Ryan Williams. 

It wasn’t a diverse economy, a tech startup community, several well-known universities downtown, the world’s best collection of architecture, or any of that other crap that we need for others to pay attention to us. Where am I coming from?

From the Beachwood Reporter’s Steve Rhodes:

“Almost everyone agrees that having these two summits in our city is a great opportunity to solidify our rightful place as a world city,” Ald. Joe Moreno wrote on Huffington Post explaining his votes in favor of the new ordinances.

I’m not sure which part of that declaration is worse: “Almost everyone,” “great opportunity,” or “solidify our rightful place as a world city.”

It’s okay to say no to ordinances. Not every ordinance needs to pass, even with “concessions” after some “great open-mindedness” from Mayor Emanuel. Then the City Council tried to hide from the public:

“They wouldn’t let Occupiers into the council chambers. First they claimed it was a capacity. So I went up to the mezzanine and photographed empty seats and came back down to the 2nd floor. When I showed them the evidence they were lying, the cops reconvened then announced that the mayor simply refused us inside.”

This city is good enough without these two conferences. Ones that no one asked for.

My commentary on these kinds of issues is supremely bad, and I’m very mad at this city council for its endless string of rubber stamping. I didn’t start paying attention until the parking meter lease deal. 

Clean Power Ordinance, delayed again

September 26, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Updated September 30, 2011: The ordinance never got on the Committee on Health and Environmental Protection’s agenda for September. So my fingers are crossed for the October meeting.

Clean power advocates march in Pilsen on Saturday, September 24, 2011. Photo by Ryan Williams. 

Instead of voting on the Clean Power Ordinance on September 8, 2011, the Committee on Committees, Ethics and Rules “re-referred” it to the Committee on Health and Environmental Protection. This is a companion post to Rollin’ beyond coal, on Grid Chicago.

What the Clean Power Ordinance is

It sets emissions standards for coal-powered plants in Chicago. It applies modern standards about air pollution, as they apply to coal and natural gas power plants, to any coal-powered plant in Chicago.

The Chicago Clean Power Coalition has a summary of the ordinance.

Why this is needed

Residents of Pilsen, Little Village, Bridgeport and other communities (pollution has no boundary) have suffered for decades from the release of carbon dioxide, mercury, lead, hydrochloric acid and other chemicals into the air. Read the Toxics Release Inventory for the Fisk Generating Station.

A large portion of the population is 18 and younger; this portion is growing. Pollution has a greater negative effect on young people.

The Fisk and Crawford power plants, owned by Midwest Generation, a subsidiary of Edison International, were grandfathered in to the Clean Air Act of 1970. That means the standards imposed by that legislation don’t apply.

The ordinance’s “Whereas” clause lists six studies that define the effects of certain levels of particulate matter (better known as soot) on human disease, mortality, and life expectancy. A 2002 Harvard study (PDF) that found the power plants combined caused 41 premature deaths per year.

What else

It appears that Alderman JoAnn Thompson, 16th Ward, is no longer a co-sponsor. The Chicago Clean Power Coalition lists her as a co-sponsor as of August 12, 2011, but on the ordinance document (ordinance number O2011-6489) published on the City Clerk’s website, her name is missing.

Midwest Generation, or one of its sister companies, Edison Mission Energy, is known to have lobbied the City Council, the Mayor’s Office, and the Department of Environment in 2010. “Midwest Generation officials said the ordinance is not needed because they already have started to comply with federal standards that will significantly cut pollution at their plants” (Chicago Tribune). The company also claims that a shutdown of the plant will harm electricity supply in Chicago. On that:

Chicago doesn’t actually need the electricity from the plants, though if the plants go offline before ongoing upgrades to local transmission infrastructure are completed it could cause instability on the grid including possible blackouts, according to a spokesman for the utility ComEd. (Midwest Energy News)

Alderman Solis (25th Ward) joined Alderman Joe Moore (49th Ward) during the election time this year as a lead sponsor, to help save his seat on the council in a fight with Cuahetemoc “Témoc” Morfin.

What’s next

Since the Committee on Committees, Ethics and Rules (CCER) “re-referred” it to the Committee on Health and Environmental Protection (CHEP), the members of CHEP, 18 of which are also on CCER, must discuss the ordinance. Oddly, CHEP did not place on its agenda for their Tuesday, September 27, 2011, meeting a consideration of the ordinance. After discussion, the committee can recommend that the full council vote on it. If the council passes it, Mayor Emanuel can sign or veto it.

In July, Mayor Emanuel talked about his support for the ordinance but didn’t go so far as to endorse it.

Del Valle on Walmart stores and good governing in Chicago

January 22, 2011 / / 0 Comments

This is juicy. I went to a friend’s house tonight (along with 40 other people) to hear and talk to Miguel Del Valle, candidate for Chicago mayor (the election’s on February 22). After he talked about his issues, we asked him questions on different issues or to expand on what he said earlier.

Someone in the audience asked about Walmart in Pullman. I’m not sure of the exact question, but Miguel answered: “I support a living wage. If I was mayor, I would not have vetoed the ‘big box ordinance’.” (Mayor Daley initially supported the big box ordinance that would have set a minimum wage for workers in stores of a certain square footage but vetoed the bill after it was approved by the city council.)

Not wanting to lose an opportunity to talk about such a contentious issue (now quickly becoming one for New York City), I spoke up and mentioned to Miguel that Walmart plans 30 more stores in Chicago (a few people gasped at the thought of this) and asked, “How do you feel about that?” He replied:

How do I feel about that? It won’t be my job to feel something about new Walmarts in the city. That’s the city council’s job. I want to liberate them [he said this on Wednesday night]. I want there to be an open, deliberative process, with debate and transparency. I want there to be public hearings in and outside the council chambers. Let the proponents speak, and let the opponents speak. Whether or not there should be more Walmarts in Chicago is up to the aldermen and their constituents to decide. There are areas in Chicago where stores that sell fresh groceries don’t want to move in, but Walmart is – people are willing to take what they can get.* What is appropriate in one neighborhood might not be appropriate for another, but that is not for the mayor to decide. The citizens must choose.

(I can’t believe I paraphrased his response so well. I mean, I rode home in 2°F cold so my body is really tired.)

One audience member wasn’t sure what it meant to “liberate aldermen” and asked, “Can you describe what that looks like?” She was curious about Del Valle’s “proposal” to have a democratic process in the city council chambers. He explained that the citizens elect aldermen to represent them when making and passing bills. It’s the mayor’s job to control the flow of bill introductions and voting.

He gave the example of the parking meter deal: The ordinance was introduced one day and voted on the next day. This wouldn’t happen if Del Valle was mayor because he would require debate, transparency, hearings, and such. As mayor, he would immediately engage Morgan Stanley to try to renegotiate the terms of the lease. Unlike The Urbanophile, Miguel does not believe the city can buy back the meters – they’re far too valuable at this point.

He wants to make a structural change – the way governing should be but hasn’t been during the Daley administration. I support him in this effort.

*I would prefer that our TIF dollars be used for what they were designed for: improving the economic conditions in blighted areas. TIF money is supposed to be used to pay for capital projects that would not occur in that area if not for the TIF funding. Maybe Pete’s Fresh Market or Roundy’s needs a bit more incentive. The Walmart contribution to the tax rolls is not all it’s cracked up to be! Also consider how big companies like Walmart, and now Costco in the Illinois Medical District, consistently receive tax brakes. These are the very companies that can most afford paying taxes.