How to talk to your neighbors about our housing reforms
I get it. Housing reform is complex. Most people don’t even understand what zoning is, and even I can’t fully wrap my head around the details of all the possible changes.
The basics are this: large parts of oak park are zoned single family only. Our proposed changes will end that, allowing ‘middle’ housing forms in neighborhoods. Two flats, three flats and four flats will become legal to build again, as they once were long ago.
Even if you support these changes yourself. You might have curious or angry neighbors. If you want to support reform in your conversations with them, here are some pointers on how to answer some typical questions:
‘The character of Oak Park is leafy streets with single family homes. Won’t this destroy that?’
The character of Oak Park has always included middle housing. It’s all over the place if you just look: https://apartments.yesoakpark.org/character/
Oak Park is indeed a beautiful and diverse place, but its beauty and diversity flow in part from its existing denser housing stock. Our most walkable neighborhoods, with bustling business districts, are the places with the densest housing. These are lovely places.
‘Won’t this just allow greedy for-profit developers to build ugly tall monstrosities from lot-line to lot-line?’
The zoning rules in neighborhoods intentionally create neighborhood scale architectural standards. The height allowance is increased by five feet in some places, but for the most part developers won’t be able to build any closer to the lot-lines than they can today.
Don’t forget, greedy developers built almost all the housing in Oak Park today, for a profit. They build what we want, not the other way around.
‘All the new housing is just ‘luxury’ housing. What does a luxury four flat do to make things more affordable?’
Luxury is a marketing term. All new construction is expensive. Apartments that are today affordable, were marketed as luxury fifty years ago. But we stopped building about fifty years ago. We have to start building again so that our kids and grandkids will have new affordable housing in the future.
But it can work faster than that. New high-end supply frees up lower end housing very quickly. Without that supply affluent buyers and renters crowd into older housing, bidding up rents and prices. When we build new, these people step up into a fancy top of the line place.
They leave behind a vacancy that’s a step down in price and quality. Somebody in turn steps into that unit, leaving their even cheaper and less fancy place vacant. And so on, down the housing price stack until vacancies open up in very affordable housing. This isn’t just a theory, we saw it happen in Oak Park. Since 2012 we built 1750 new units, almost all market rate. In that time the Illinois Housing Development Authority reported that the affordable housing supply increased by 1300 units.
‘Isn’t that just ‘trickle down economics’?’
Reaganomics was thoroughly debunked by economists. It doesn’t work. The fact that new market rate housing drives down rents in existing housing is a remarkably stable finding well documented by mainstream economists.
If you want a more tangible example think of the chip shortage that almost halted new car production during the pandemic. Automakers made only the highest end cars in order to get the most out of the supply they had. There was so little supply that used car prices skyrocketed.
But when the chip shortage eased, a wave of pricey brand new cars caused the prices in the used market to fall very quickly. Housing markets work the same way. And with similar speed.
‘People are just name calling and saying I am a racist if I don’t support this’
It’s impossible to ignore the history of zoning as one component of a historically segregationist system. It’s too much to get into here but suggest your neighbor read ‘The Color of Law’.
One can argue that modern zoning no longer has segregationist intent. The problem is that it’s still enforcing segregation today. Single family only zoned neighborhoods have the lowest non-white population. Neighborhoods with mixed single family and middle housing are the most diverse.
The history and the modern reality are what they are. What we do about it is up to us.
‘Where did this come from? We should slow this down and reconsider, we don’t even know what’s being changed!’
This is part of a multi year process with intensive study and review. And it still has a lot of review ahead of it. Even if implemented, it will take years for modest changes to be visible. Nothing moves fast with housing.
There is plentiful information on the changes and plenty of time left to provide feedback to the Village Board and the Plan Commission. See: https://engageoakpark.com/shape
‘We should put this up for a referendum’
We’ve got an election in April for three village Trustees. There we will be a slate of candidates who oppose zoning reform. There are many candidates who support zoning reform. Vote. Let your voice be heard.
A referendum is advisory only and the language of the one floating around is so unclear it would be impossible to draw any conclusions from it. Our advisory referendums famously make us a ‘Nuclear Free Zone’, which is a bit silly. The outcome of this next election however will dramatically impact our housing choices for decades to come.
‘Why are they banning single family homes?’
This change still allows single family homes to be built. It just allows 2-4 flats in neighborhoods. This won’t eliminate single family homes as a choice. It will bring more choice and housing diversity, providing space for young people without kids and retirees looking to downsize.
‘What about accessibility? New four-flats won’t have elevators.’
Our existing neighborhood housing stock is notoriously not accessible. These zoning reforms are an opportunity to create new housing to a new standard. We can create incentives for ground floor accessible units. There’s also a large market demand for it. Aging in community today means moving into a large building with elevators. In the future it will mean moving into an accessible garden level walk-up in neighborhood 3-flat.
‘What about the schools? What about our sewers and water mains? Won’t more people drive costs up?’
Creating more housing diversity creates space for more than just families with kids. Young people with no kids and empty-nest retirees will pay school taxes but won’t burden the school system.
Our roads, sewers and other infrastructure don’t scale with population. Sewers are sized for massive rainfall events. Our water mains supported 20k more citizens in the 60s, and we aren’t building any more roads in Oak Park.
But all of this infrastructure requires constant maintenance and upkeep. Having more taxpayers to share the load decreases our individual burden.
‘This will bring more traffic and flood the streets with parked cars’
Most of the traffic problem in Oak Park is from people passing through or around Oak Park. It’s not residents. Adding new residents won’t drive significant new traffic, especially in an area that’s so densely connected to Chicagoland’s transit options. Living in densely connected Oak Park allows more people to have fewer cars, and to replace car trips with walking, biking or transit.
Developers who create new housing will have to provide parking. The market will demand it.