It’s vital that River Foresters who care about preserving the housing affordable to their neighbors with modest incomes — retired seniors, teachers, librarians, nurses, etc. — attend and speak up at Tuesday’s (March 3) Plan Commission meeting at 7 p.m. at Village Hall, 400 Park. Public testimony on the draft Affordable Housing Plan at the Jan. 21 public hearing, led the Plan Commission to send it back to the consultant for rehabilitation.
The revised plan probably won’t be available until this Friday, just four days before the March 3 Plan Commission meeting — hardly enough time for adequate public review. I will post an annotated copy of the plan within 24 hours of its release at http://www.riverforestmatters.com.
Nobody knows exactly how much the plan will be rehabilitated except that the entire Plan Commission wanted the language calling affordable housing a “burden” removed. As a professional city planner who has worked on affordable housing policy for decades, I urge River Foresters to attend and speak out March 3 in support of including these recommendations in the plan:
Amend River Forest’s Comprehensive Plan to establish a policy of preserving existing housing affordable to households with modest incomes
Adopt effective incentivized inclusionary zoning
Adopt the policy that at least 15 percent of dwelling units in all new developments that include multi-family housing be affordable to households of modest incomes
Adopt a precise policy for TIF districts to either maintain existing multi-family and single-family housing affordable to households with modest incomes or replace existing affordable housing with new affordable units in new developments in the TIF districts on a one-for-one basis
If these recommendations are left out of the Affordable Housing Plan, the plan will be a whitewash when far more than a new coat of paint is needed.
Daniel Lauber, AICP
River Forest
