The Tribune and the Sun-Times reported on Ald. Proco Joe Moreno‘s proposal, which passed the City Council Zoning Committee, to allow a portion of commercial space to be used for residences. From the Sun-Times:
Moreno predicted that “thousands” of professionals would take advantage of the change, filling scores of vacant storefronts and building the city’s tax base.
“Some of these people [who] are living in lofts and selling everything on the Internet — they’re not paying taxes. It’s gonna bring them out of the shadows,” Moreno said.
“Accountants, doctors, artisans [who] sell designer clothes, shoes — they can now live and work in the same space. … I have many small business people who say, ‘I’d love to have a storefront. I can’t afford my loft apartment and the rental on the storefront.’ Now, they’re gonna be able to combine those.”
Was Moreno misquoted, or did he really talk about 1,000s of professionals filling scores of spaces? Did he really suggest that doctors would be taking up residence behind their offices? Is the requirement for a special use permit just another way for the Aldermen to score a few extra bucks during the new construction slowdown?
Thousands? Professionals?
More likely hundreds of small struggling shop owners.
One of the problems during the last construction boom is that on many streets “da city” required that storefronts/offices be on the ground floors of many smaller residential buildings. Adding new commercial space to neighborhoods with a huge commercial space vacancy rate was an act of genius that could only come at the hands of a bureaucrat.
So now there are dozens of small residential buildings out there with vacant commercial on the first floor and a few stories of residences above.
What would have made more sense is to duplex the second floor units into the ground floor units and still have the ground floor units have the appearance of being commercial space.
Again, I’m a pirate/prophet lost in the wilderness of the Chicago Zoning and Building codes.
IrishPirate,
I’ve seen 100s of newer small residential buildings with vacant commercial space at the ground level.
I always wondered why they put commercial spaces on the ground floor these days in the Humboldt Park area. They seem to build a lot of 4 story buildings with commercial first floors that take years to find a tenant. Then they often fail and sit empty for years.
Hundreds is the correct number, Joe.
Dozens merely on Belmont, perhaps.
At least a proportion of these ground level commercial spaces would not sit vacant if the city didn’t allow so many strip malls to be built all over the city.
Joe,
You are wrong that doctors would mind setting up residence behind their office. I think more people than you realize would love to have such a short commute to their jobs.
My big problem is that it looks like you still have to go to the Zoning Board of Appeals to approve this. They should make this much easier for people.
tup,
Since you’re in the profession you know different doctors than I do. I don’t know any who operate out of storefronts.
I do know two dentists who maintain a variety of storefront offices, but they’d never live there. For starters, there’d be the Winnetka homes to give up, and then dealing with the junkies who break in looking for pharmaceuticals.
Joe – it’s certainly common in Continental Europe and it was more common here (they were often the apartment above the clinic, up until the 50’s, usually the neighborhood showplace – I’ve been in about a dozen or so in the Chicago area, the clinic is still in use/business but the apartments are abandoned or used for storage/offices), but we are generally more residentially segregated in the US anyways (plus more practices are larger than in other countries, making a home based office more difficult).
Joe,
Part of the reason you see almost no doctors living above or behind their clinic is answered by the article above: it usually isn’t allowed.
But of course, there are also many other reasons: they may not be serving a very safe neighborhood, they may live elsewhere and already have a home and mortgage, and nowadays most doctors aren’t in private practice anyhow, which of course is what we are talking about here.