The City Council may be about to take a baby step toward independence, may be about to actually defy Mayor Daley. At issue is an ordinance that would require developers in gentrifying neighborhoods to set aside apartments for low- and middle-income residents. Three years ago 15 community groups formed a coalition to push for such an ordinance, and they persuaded Fourth Ward alderman Toni Preckwinkle to introduce one in 2002. But only a few council independents supported it, notably aldermen Joe Moore (of the 49th Ward), Helen Shiller (46th), and Ricardo Munoz (22nd). “Mayor Daley felt it would kill the goose that laid the golden egg,” says Moore. “He thought it would stifle development. He was never for it.”
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Since then the mayor has used his influence to keep the ordinance buried in the council’s housing committee, which is chaired by 31st Ward alderman Regner Suarez, a particularly loyal Daley backer. Suarez has never let the ordinance out of his committee for a vote. He’s never even scheduled hearings on it. “The mayor hasn’t budged on this,” says Tom Walsh of the Organization of the NorthEast, a member of the coalition. “Mayor Daley has refused to ever meet with us–and there’s been many, many requests.”
He also points out that it’s intended to help people with a decent income, not just the poor. “We’re basically talking about offering rental and home housing opportunities to people making $15,000 to $40,000 a year,” he says. “This is not housing for people with no income–not that there’s anything wrong with that. It serves the housing needs of tens of thousands of households that are not being served.” A 2003 study done for the coalition by Business and Professional People for the Public Interest showed that “only 2% of all new home construction has been affordable to households earning at or below [$34,350]. Only 10% of all new home construction has been affordable to households earning at or below [$54,960].”
Pressure for better balanced development across the city is also coming from less-well-off neighborhoods that have seen an influx of lower-income people who were priced out of their former communities. “There’s a stress and strain that comes from gentrification,” says Reverend Sharod Gordon of Target, a south-side economic-development organization in Auburn Gresham that’s a member of the coalition. “Our high schools get overcrowded. There’s crime and drugs and prostitution. We’re looking at the other side of gentrification–when people get pushed out of other neighborhoods up north and come here.”
