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I recently had a lengthy conversation with Ald. King on this, but I didn’t end with a good sense of what she intends to do.
I was quite surprised at how little resistance the 910 building put up back in 2016, but I think their board at the time had been focused on lot-line issues, and once the design pulled back 10 feet from the lot line, they acquiesced. But board leadership, and even residents, change over time. I only heard concerns expressed in the Feb. 22 meeting. A lot of it is Boomers who just can’t comprehend why respectable people would ever rent rather than buy condos; some is Boomers who frequently drive on various errands and therefore just assume more units will mean proportionally more trip generation. They also often feel streets are already saturated, a point of view that puzzles me since it’s pretty rare for me to even have to wait 10 seconds before crossing most South Loop streets.
Ald. King didn’t seem all that receptive to the “but they’re rental units” argument; in fact, her main issue is affordable housing (which the new proposal includes 23 units of). But she’s more receptive to the drive-everywhere crowd and had already made them put more parking stalls in this revised PD. The big question for me is whether the mayor’s office and Commissioner Cox will pressure her to harvest the golden eggs (those affordable units, millions for the Neighborhood Opportunity Fund; more millions in property tax, etc.) right away, or let the site wait a few years for a better design and a more realistic pro forma.