Say Yes! to new housing

Yes Oak Park is on a mission to get Oak Park IL to say Yes! to new housing. We promote gentle housing density by engaging and educating the public about the benefits of zoning reform, and advocating for specific legislative zoning changes with Village Hall.

Why say Yes?

1. So our neighbors can age in place. New neighbors buy Oak Park houses to get access to the schools, driving sky-high single-family property tax bills paid mostly to those schools. An affordable Oak Park allows families to remain in the village after their kids graduate.
2. To drive our economy. As the saying goes, "retail follows rooftops". Every inch of Oak Park residential land is occupied. If we want restaurants, shopping, coffee, and services beyond what we have now, we need the density and foot traffic to support it.
3. For the health of the planet. Single-family homes with commuter garages are the least energy-efficient way for the market to provide housing. New multi-family development – anywhere in the village – slashes the environmental footprint of housing, and takes the best advantage of our CTA and Metra connectivity.
4. To make housing affordable. New construction is never going to be cheap. But nothing in Oak Park is cheap, no matter when it was built. Every inch of Oak Park residential land is spoken for. Redeveloping existing lots takes pressure off existing multifamily housing stock.
5. For public safety. Long stretches of Oak Park, zoned commercial but largely vacant, shut down after dark. Oak Park is safe where people are walking around, where businesses are open, and where everybody's looking out for their neighbors. To revitalize our commercial districts, we need to bring them new customers.
6. Because Evanston hasn't done it yet. Once again the gauntlet has been thrown. 50 years from now, our grandchildren are going to look back on 20th century housing policy as the lurid injustice that it is. Which Chicagoland municipality will be first to rectify the problem? Every year that passes is another opportunity for Evanston to beat us to the punch.
7. To make our homes more valuable. A single-family lot that can be redeveloped into a three-flat is much more valuable than a lot that can't. Zoning reform increases the supply of housing, makes homes more affordable, and increases home prices. It's the closest thing in public policy to alchemy.
8. Because it's fair. Every Oak Parker knows what the border between Oak Park and Austin means: we're the beneficiaries of generations of anti-Black housing policy. The history of apartment bans in Chicago is the history of redlining and racial steering, and we're long overdue to remedy that.

Oak Park in 2050 is not going to look like Oak Park did in 2000. The question is: how will it be different? "Yes" is a vote for a diverse Oak Park with a thriving economy that we can all actually afford to live in.

See our platform for the specific changes we are advocating.

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