During the July 23rd Village Board meeting, village staff presented a number of re-zoning options to the board. The asterisk in the title above represents that fact that all of these options are quite preliminary, and lacking in specifics. Option 1 - Remove the single family only zoning district entirely,

1. 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

United Center owners planning massive $7 billion mixed-use campus around the arenaPlans call for a music hall, housing, park and pedestrian-friendly spaces as part of a 10-year development project that could start as early as 2025.Chicago Sun-TimesAbby Miller

Village staff will present zoning options to the board during the July 23rd meeting. They put forth the following 'strategic vision': Modify Oak Park’s Zoning Ordinance to Allow “Missing Middle Housing”: 1. Build consensus on intended goals of missing middle housing and zoning changes necessary to achieve

Thomas Ptacek is doing some historical research on Oak Park zoning codes. I will leave the details to him, but he found that our zoning code was penned by none other than Harland Bartholomew and Associates, who entered into a contract to amend our code in the 1940s. Harland Bartholomew

The super PAC, Abundant New York, is the electoral arm of Open New York,a nonprofit group formed in 2016 that advocates more development. The PAC is a more aggressive attempt by the group to make politicians feel consequences for not doing enough to address a worsening housing crisis.

This was presented back in March to the village board by the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus, and I think it's worth revisiting. It's got a wealth of general information about Oak Park, demographics and the current state of zoning and development, well worth a read. It also

Love this, though Chicago has historically had much more permissive zoning than the burbs.I think that Oak Park's ADU ordinance is relatively weak, not many have been built because it's far too restrictive. Oak Park should create a meaningful ADU ordinance that allows economically viable

I can heartily recommend ‘Escaping the Housing Trap’ by Charles L. Marohn Jr. and Daniel Herriges. This is the third in a series of books from https://www.strongtowns.org/, focusing on housing and housing affordability. The book opens with ‘how we got here’, a somewhat depressing retelling of how