Alderman Says Luxury Condos Have Made West Loop 'A Bigot Neighborhood'
By Rachel Cromidas in News on Jul 8, 2015 4:35PM
Ald. Walter Burnett Jr. (27th) has had enough of the West Loop's fancy condo owners.
In hopes of slowing the tide of skyrocketing housing prices in part of his Near West Side ward, the alderman said at a community meeting Tuesday that he will require new local rental buildings to set aside at least 10 percent of units as affordable housing. And for that reason, he doesn't want community members to oppose new rental developments, like the 80-unit building proposed near the Morgan Street CTA station, or another proposed for 111 S. Peoria St., anymore.
As Burnett told community members, according to DNAinfo:
"If this project is approved, they are going to have to do some affordable housing in the building. I'm not going to let any [other developer] buy out of affordable housing in this neighborhood because I am feeling so much discrimination, tension in this neighborhood. It's going to have to be a mixed neighborhood. Don't no one group own no neighborhood in the City of Chicago. This is America."
Burnett also said he thinks neighborhood opposition to new developments is making the West Loop "a bigot neighborhood," DNAinfo reported.
Burnett's position is nuanced; many criticisms of luxury rental developments stem from the concern that they drive neighborhood rents up without giving back to the community the way home owners do. But rental apartment developers could be strong-armed into creating more affordable housing with the right approach. If developers are required to set aside more affordable housing units in order to gain the alderman's approval to build in the neighborhood, it could ironically make the West Loop and the Near West Side more friendly to lower- and mixed-income households in the long run.
While we approve of any effort to slow the West Loop's transformation into a high-end yuppie playground that makes Lincoln Park look like a six-year-old's birthday party, we are still perplexed by Burnett's logic. And we aren't the only ones.
A 15-year resident who lives near Mary Bartelme Park told DNAinfo that she doesn't think neighbors aren't trying to discriminate against renters, but want to protect the integrity of their community.
"I think we want to create our home and keep it that way and I really resent everyone calling us bigots because we want owners [in the neighborhood]," the woman said.
But from the opulence of SoHo House to the decadence of a prix fixe menu at a place like Next, to the developers champing at the bit to get their latest high-end office building, trendy live-work apartment complex or boutique-y hotel underway, the stratospheric climb of the Near West Side's prices is all but inevitable.