Quote:
Originally Posted by VivaLFuego
Even with a demographic shift it's still hard to see --- most of the land on that stretch is either occupied by condo/co-op units, for which there is little precedent of redevelopment, or the block long stretch owned by the tax-exempt Francis Parker school so they can have a fenced-in field on absurdly valuable lakefront property.
A new generation of younger owners may be more amenable to density than the older crowd, but it's hard to see yuppie families tolerating either a) having their building bought out or especially b) their kids not having a large field to practice soccer on. Remember, the younger generation are the ones who bankrolled the soccer field in the publicly-owned park, originally for the primary benefit of Latin School.
The scarcity of large developable parcels is exactly why this development and it's low floor-area-ratio and unit count is such a disappointment, and why the ongoing battle to redevelop Lincoln Park Hospital and eventually the various Children's Memorial parcels is so important: these are the only chances for the next few decades to do anything substantial in East Lincoln Park. To the north, there is the large parcel on Sheridan that the Wirtz's will eventually build a highrise on, and there are some empty lakefront parcels at Wellington that are zoned and marketed as sites for single family mansions. To the south, the only possibilities along Clark would be to assemble a large number of consecutive parcels that are of extremely high value as SFHs --- and that's before the zoning and landmarks battle, since those parcels have some very well preserved Italianate rowhouses that probably ideally wouldn't be demolished anyway. That's about it.
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The only way that more of these types of developments can occur is if people begin to understand the values inherent in density. Urban properity depends on having strong tax base and enough pouplation to support the commerce which builds the economic base.Unfortunately, people rarely voice their opinions for the pro-develkopment viewpoint other than in forums such as this.
Until people who get these concepts are willing to advocate them in public, the "old-guard" residents entrenched in their antiquated views will win the favors of local government. There are few government officials willing to take on the anti-development folks because they don't see or hear the soices of support.
What we need to ask (and answer) is how to get pro-development voices to speak out even when they have no direct interest in a particular development.