http://www.suntimes.com/business/roe...onze05.article
Group calls for control over Bronzeville development
1,800 VACANT LOTS | Residents say they just want area to 'maintain its mixed-income character'
May 5, 2008Recommend (7)
BY DAVID ROEDER
droeder@suntimes.com
Accusing City Hall of conspiring with private developers in a "land grab," a community group is demanding local control over future development in Bronzeville.
The argument rages over about 1,800 city-owned vacant lots in the historic Near South Side neighborhood. Residents have organized the Housing Bronzeville group to pressure city officials to offer the property as part of a trust fund for affordable housing.
Valencia Hardy, a leader of Housing Bronzeville, said private buyers have grabbed much of the best property in recent years, driving up prices and threatening to make Bronzeville unaffordable for long-time residents.
In the meantime, the city-owned parcels have largely languished, she said. "I just want to see Bronzeville maintain its mixed-income character. It's what makes it a nice place to live," said Hardy, a retired postal worker who has lived in the area since 1995. "Between the developers and the city, it's been like a land grab down here."
The campaign has so far drawn resistance from the Daley administration and from aldermen whose wards include the 1,800 vacant lots. The issue appears to be control over money that the vacant land could produce.
Peter Scales, spokesman for the city's Planning Department, said the organization is trying to duplicate programs already operated by city government. He said the city is committed to housing development under the following allowances: one-third as replacement public housing, one-third at subsidized prices for buyers with moderate incomes, and one-third priced at market rates.
He noted that Housing Bronzeville is asking only for a 26 percent set-aside for below-market-priced homes.
Scales also said many of the 1,800 lots the city owns are committed as sites for public housing units to replace high-rises the Chicago Housing Authority is demolishing. Most of the lots were acquired in tax delinquency proceedings.
Ald. Patricia Dowell, whose 3rd Ward includes most of the targeted lots, said she has withheld support for the Housing Bronzeville proposal because it raises "a host of legal, political and practical issues."
The proposal, which the group hopes to enact via a referendum on the Nov. 4 ballot, would have Bronzeville property owners pay an additional tax into a new trust fund.
The fund would be led by a community-elected board, with a minority of mayoral appointees, and proceeds would support land acquisition and housing construction.
Dowell said the proposal is illegal because state statutes "do not give community groups the power to tax and spend." She said she supports the organization's goals and would work with it to refine its ideas.
A community trust fund also would undercut traditional aldermanic authority. While the city often advertises for bids on vacant lots, it accepts only proposals that have explicit support from local aldermen.
Kenneth Williams, another Housing Bronzeville member, said he suspects the aldermen want to preserve their power. "There is a lot of money in our community because of this property," he said.
Since Mayor Daley announced his drive to get the 2016 Summer Olympics, some residents have wondered if City Hall has secret plans for the 1,800 lots.
Two proposed Olympic sites, the athletes' housing and Washington Park, are in or near Bronzeville. But Scales said the Olympics are uncertain and so far off that the priority has to be fostering balanced development in the neighborhood sooner than 2016.
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