[ChiPlanner]

I don't think most of you understand how affordable housing development works. The far and away largest cost for any developer is acquisition. The fact that the city will be selling them the property for $1 rather than $4.5 million literally is what makes this project feasible. This isn't a government handout, but rather the city is selling the property so that they do NOT have to subsidize the housing in the future.

More than likely this project will be financed, as most affordable housing development is, through capital, LIHTC, debt, TIF, and some possible HUD grant programs. LIHTC in particular requires affordability up to a specific percentage of the Area Median Income for 15-30 years depending on the structure. TIF is meant to be used for this sort of thing and NOT to subsize private developments.

Complain about the crappy design if you'd like (it's crappy- I agree), but get off of your socialism-bashing neo-liberalist high-horse and try to see this for what it is: the culmination of the backing-off of true housing policies by the federal government over the last 30 years which results in this haphazard "market based" affordable housing development.