Quote:
Originally Posted by ardecila
The provisions of a landmark district are not that burdensome.
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While that's true, it does introduce a new layer of bureaucracy onto a community that for 50 years mostly hasn't bothered to pull
any permits for a lot of the work done there.
I think there's a generational split that makes this a really muddled message from "the community." "No landmark district" is coming from the old couples who bought those two-flats for $5000 back in 1974 and now wouldn't mind selling to a hipster developer for enough money to buy 200 hectares in Michoacán, or enough to comfortably retire near the grandkids in Dallas. They certainly don't want to apply for permits and get architectural drawings to replace the gutters or back porch.
Then there's the young radicals, nursing complaints about student loans and lack of middle-class jobs and worried that gentrification will not only force them out of affordable housing but seriously change the character of Pilsen.
Neither group really understand what's legal under Illinois law and what's possible given Chicago politics. And the way public discussions have had to happen during a pandemic, and in two languages, with people who sometimes want to be invisible to the legal system, has made it no easier. Add in a firebrand greenhorn alderman and a clueless planning commissioner washing his hands of the whole affair and you get the holy mess we saw yesterday, which accomplished absolutely nothing toward saving any aspect of Pilsen.