Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Why Andersonville, why now?

It is the same pattern repeated again and again.

There is an organization in Chicago that calls themselves "Preservation Chicago." Though they claim to have an interest in presreving properties, they don't do any of that sort of hard work themselves. Rather, they try to impose City of Chicago landmark designation on all of the neighborhoods that they like, and really don't care what the people affected by the process want or think.

Here is an overview of their modus operandi.

Preservation Chicago, usually in the form of their president, Jonathan Fine, goes to meetings of the local neighborhood association and asks if they would allow Presrevation Chicago to make a presentation on the benefits of landmarking. With all good intentions (because it never hurts to listen, right?) the neighborhood association lets them do a presentation. It is (perhaps unsurprisingly) misleading and biased in favor of landmarking. They use fear tactics that a local neighborhood is on the verge of destruction from evil tearing-down developers, with ugly "McMansions" soon to take their place. (They are currently using a Lincoln Park block on Burling street to illustrate this point, but fail to disclose that this particular block was originally blighted and run down compared to the rest of the neighborhood, and given a special zoning exemption, which caused turnover of the dilapidated housing stock to be replaced with bigger buildings that could never have been built but-for the special zoning exemption. Proof positive that it is zoning, not landmarking, that has the most impact on the character of your neighborhood. Oh, it also turns out that in the heart of Lincoln Park (Willow to Belden, Halsted to Sheffield), the area Preservation Chicago wanted to get their hands on, less than 1% of the properties in the area had whole-house demolition permits issued by the city within the last five years, and for the most part the neighborhood was happy to see houses like the 1950s wood frame and another one covered with asbestos shingles get replaced with newer brick and stone single family homes).

Preservation Chicago tried this last year with us in Lincoln Park's Armitage/Sheffield district. They pushed it through on West Town (and the West Town property owners have seen property values that were appreciating rapidly suddenly freeze, so much so that people are now advertise their properties for sale as "non-landmarked"). They're starting this process in Bucktown. Ditto for anyone with a greystone in Lakeview. And now they've set their sights on Andersonville.

Preservation Chicago holds out landmarking as the neighborhood holy grail, but never tells people about what landmarking really does to your property, never explains what happens once the process gets underway with the city bureaucracy and never informs people about the very real downsides.

Why don't they pain the whole picture? Because once people realize what is actually being taken away from them, they reject the idea.

So what Preservation Chicago tries to do is get the neighborhood association reps and the alderman sufficiently invested in the process that they won't want to look back. And, they don't want to give people opposing the idea to get organized. And they definitely want to make sure that the Alderman does not hear that there is opposition to the idea. They want to keep her in the dark as well as to what people really think, because landmarking, unlike aldermen, is forever.

Here is what we know about what they have done so far in Andersonville.

Preservation Chicago made their initial presentation meeting to the Lakewood Balmoral Residents Council in July of this past year. They did a second presentation in November, imported their own members to the meeting, and took a "straw poll" saying that everyone was in favor of landmarking. They refused to answer people's questions. It was then reported to the LBRC that "everyone" was in favor of landmarking a district in Andersonville.

The proposed boundaries? Everything from Foster (south side) to Bryn Mawr (north side), and from Magnolia (both sides) to Wayne (both sides).

Now LBRC, thinking that "everyone" wants landmarking, has established a committee to investigate landmarking, and will sponsor "coffees" on a block-by-block basis where Preservation Chicago will tightly control the meeting, who gets to speak, and who gets to attend. Having controlled the meeting and the information flow, Preservation Chicago and LBRC will then report back that having consulted "everyone" living on the blocks in question, landmarking is a good idea. They'll get the Alderman to sign off on the deal, and then you are effectively landmarked.

You may be asking at this point, Don't I get a vote? Theoretically, yes. In reality, no. Here is why.

The landmarks bureaucracy has NEVER, EVER rejected a request for landmark districting that is requested by a local alderman. Under the Landmarks ordinance, the city is obligated to send out ballots to the property taxpayers and see if they want it or not. But, the Landmarks ordinance specifically states that even if a majority of property owners vote AGAINST landmarking their properties, the Landmarks Commission (9 people appointed by the mayor, no-one is elected; Senator Obama's wife is one of them) can landmark you anyway. Unless the entire City Council votes within a year to overturn their decision, you are permanently landmarked.

So what do you need to do? Get involved with the process NOW. We will be collecting information here to pass on to homeowners about landmarking in Andersonville. We will let you know when neighborhood association meetings are, how to contact your Alderman, and what you can do to let your neighbors know. You can email us at vocalneighbors@hotmail.com with any questions that you may have as well.

To be blunt: if your Alderman recommends you for landmarking, you will be landmarked. If she does not propose a district for landmarking, your property rights are safe.

To be fair: it does not appear that your Alderman is pushing for this herself, and is willing to listen to what the people in her neighborhood actually want, which puts you in a far better position than the one we were in when Vi Daley wanted to landmark Lincoln Park, and certainly much better than the poor people in West Town who got screwed over by Manny Flores.

Please use this site to educate yourself as to who your alderman is, when meetings impacting your block will be taking place, and what you can do to protect your property rights. The post prior to this one gives your Alderman's info; the next one will give some of our top reasons why landmarking property under the current ordinance will make it harder, not easier, for you to maintain your home in your neighborhood.

All the best,
Dee Grant

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home