Apprentice Neighbors All Fired Up

Man, you can go from being Chicago’s darling to Chicago’s face for gentrification in like two weeks. Bill Rancic, Apprentice to the stars, is taking a lot of flak for his renovations to 1034 North Wolcott, a property he owns in East Village. Rancic purchased the two-flat and coach house back in 2002 for $435,000, according to the Sun-Times, but the coach house burned down about a year later. When he began rebuilding it, neighbors got extremely pissed. New construction of coach houses is illegal, though it’s not illegal to rebuild them. Hello? That’s like a hipster’s natural habitat, the rehabbed coach house. Neighbor Christy Webber claims that not only does Rancic lack the appropriate permits for his job, but also that such a lack contributed to the fire.
The City is siding with Rancic, responding that he does have the appropriate permits and that rebuilding essentially the same coach house is legit; arson and bomb squads are still investigating the fire.
The Reader’s cover story is about East Village this week; unfortunately, no link—snag a copy and suck down all the indie goodness.