Commentary: We can’t hope to address Chicago's housing shortage unless we actually build more housing.
has shown, starting in the 1970s, restrictive zoning changes have made it progressively harder to build new housing on the North and Northwest sides. As a result, three-flats are illegal to build in many high-income neighborhoods, including areas in proximity to CTA lines.Ahmadou Dramé: Chicago is funding flexible housing for recently incarcerated people. We will all benefit.Legalizing ADUs and three-flats would have climate and financial benefits as well.
But just because something is a good idea doesn’t mean the City Council is ready to spring into action. Unsure of the level of support, the council has taken half-measures. In 2020, the city took limited steps to legalize ADUs, restricting them to five pilot areas. And while the initial draft of last year’s Connected Communities Ordinance would have legalized three-flats near rail stations citywide, that provision was cut at the last minute.
That’s why, in the run-up to the election, our organizations, Streetsblog Chicago and Urban Environmentalists, asked every City Council candidate where they stood on ADUs and three-flats. We hoped to show that pro-housing candidates could win and that there was appetite from voters for more leadership on housing across the city.. We received responses from winning candidates in 27 wards, and all but two of them backed the ADU expansion.
Twenty council members, or more than two-thirds of our respondents, also supported legalizing three-flats. Another 11 council incumbents didn’t respond to our survey but did vote for the Connected Communities Ordinance. If just half of these incumbents can get behind the original version of the bill, three-flat legalization also has majority support on the council.
We were also struck by the breadth of support for more housing. While recent battles over density and displacement have been concentrated on the North and Northwest sides, Chicago’s pro-housing lawmakers exist across the city, from Ald. Maria Hadden in Rogers Park to Ald. Anthony Beale on the Far South Side. Chicago’s newest lawmakers are leading the way — all eight newly elected council members we heard from support citywide ADUs, and a strong majority back legalizing three-flats as well.
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