“At every community meeting I’ve ever attended, the people who show up are the homeowners. If you pay $2,500 in rent, which is a fancy apartment, they don’t come! They don’t care about the schools, they don’t care about the police, they don’t care about the parks! It’s the people who have a vested interest! Homeownership is the answer.”
– Oscar D’Angelo, “the Mayor of Little Italy,” railing against a shift away from for-sale housing at the slow-going Roosevelt Square on the Near West Side during a public meeting on Tuesday.
According to the Chicago Journal, of the 2,440-plus homes planned for Roosevelt Square over six phases, developer Related Midwest has completed work on one and a half phases comprising 591 homes — 245 public housing units, 185 affordable for-sale or rental units, 159 market-rate for-sale units, and two market-rate rentals.
The rest of the second phase calls for market-rate and affordable for-sale units in six-flats, three-flats and townhomes, and two 60-unit rental mid-rises that were originally planned as condo buildings.
Related Midwest’s listings at Roosevelt Square currently are limited to seven two- and three-bedroom townhomes in the 1200 and 1300 blocks of West Grenshaw Street and the 1000 block of Throop Street, priced from the $490s to $600s.
Roosevelt Square is one of five new mixed-income developments where a buyer can qualify for a $15,000 grant for the purchase of a new home. It is also participating in select Employer-Assisted Housing programs and the TaxSmart mortgage credit certificate program, and its homes qualify for lender incentives from Harris Bank.
Somehow that statement smacks of arrogance. A lot of people would become involved in neighborhood groups have been discouraged just because they are renters. Case in point, I had a colleague who wanted to join a group and volunteer in Lincoln Park and was told straight out that she was not wanted or welcome to join because she was a renter. I had a similar experience in another neighborhood as well.
Its not surprising that none of the mixed income developments throughtout the city aren’t doing well. There are too many public housing units. I know everyone needs someplace to live, that is why the CHA needs to spread them more thinly to no more than 10% of any development in a nice community. People are rejecting forced economic integration. People don’t want to spend their hard earned money to live in an questionable area and be apart of an social experiment like urban lab rats.
It is very true that homeowners care more about and work harder to keep the community stable. This is why many many suburban communities fight hard against apartment developments and work hard to keep them to a minimum. There are exceptions of couse in the case of downtown. If a neighborhood declines renters can easily just pack up and leave its not that easy for home owners.
CHA needs to stop using the south and south west side as dumping grounds for the undesirables. This area and the area around 22 and cermark should be so much better.
Their medling will keep the southside in its peril situation.
They wouldn’t dare try mixed income in LP,LV,Downtown etc,ven though there are vacant lots for development on the northside.
futuredoc,
As usual you have more bias than fact to offer.
There have been, over the years, a number of very successful low- and mixed-income projects throughout downtown, the near north side, Lincoln Park and Lake View.
During the 70s and 80s a number of high-rises included 20% Section 8 and other subsidy program units: Presidential Towers, Elm Street Plaza, Asbury Plaza, Webster House, just to cite a few. You might also want to take a look at the low-income co-op on North Avenue and some of the smaller projects along North and Larrabee.
More recently there’s the redevelopment of Cabrini – Green, and so on.
Don’t forget that the next place slated for redevelopment is the Lathrop Homes site.
Those mixed income projects on the northside and downtown are miniscule in comparison to the number on the south side.
Also the northside+downtown can absorb a larger number of these people while the south can’t.