You’d figure people would have packed the City Council chambers last summer when the council held a zoning hearing on the Artful Dodger building in Bucktown. The owner was asking for a zoning change that would allow him to replace the single-family unit with town houses or a multiunit building. The three-story Queen Anne, with its distinctive witch’s-hat turret, is the sort of historically significant structure that most residents–not to mention preservationists–would rally to save. But no one showed up on its behalf, and the council, following the lead of 32nd Ward alderman Ted Matlak, went ahead and changed the zoning, giving the owner every incentive to demolish the building.
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The request sailed through the system. Banks mailed notices to residents within 250 feet of the property, notifying them of Kos’s proposed change. There wasn’t a peep, and Matlak endorsed the change. On August 30 the City Council’s zoning committee, chaired by 36th Ward alderman William Banks, James Banks’s uncle, recommended that the full council approve it. (Alderman Banks recused himself on the matter, as he routinely does with cases filed by his nephew, one of the city’s busiest zoning lawyers.) And on September 14 the council unanimously ratified the change, as they do virtually any proposal blessed by the local alderman.
“With that zoning change the council made the land more valuable than the building that’s on it,” Norris says. “The change gave the owner permission to build condos or town houses, which in this inflated real estate market will bring him a lot more money than keeping the Artful Dodger.”
In this case Banks wrote, “In accordance with Amendment to the Zoning Code enacted by the City Council, Section 17-13-0107-A, please be informed that on or about July 19, 2005, I, the undersigned, will file an application for a change in zoning from a RS3 Residential Single-Unit (Detached House) District to a RT4 Residential Two Flat, Townhouse and Multiunit District on behalf of the Applicant/Owner, Wallys Development Inc., for the property located at 1734-36 West Wabansia, Chicago, Il. The property will be improved with a single-family residence.”
The 90-day hold on the demolition permit for the building expires on February 16. Matlak says he’s trying to broker a deal in which Kos sells the building to Andy Schcolnik, an architect and developer involved with Preservation Chicago. “I’ve looked at it as rental and as condos, and the only thing that would make any sense is a single-family house,” Schcolnik says. “I want to live there–I don’t want to tear it down.” Schcolnik says he offered $1.1 million for the building. “But Kos told me he wants $1.375 million. We’re negotiating.”
