Consider this my letter of support for Alan Krause’s letter [Oak Park’s search for affordable housing, Viewpoints, Aug. 20] about the village board’s hiring of Opticus Design to find a place for “missing middle” housing in order to increase density and the number of affordable residences in Oak Park. I especially enjoyed his citing Opticus’ claim to have found space for 90,000 new housing units in Columbus, Ohio.
Sunday’s (8/24/25) edition of the Chicago Tribune included an article about cities like Seattle and New York amending zoning ordinance and permit requirements to increase the housing density in some areas of their cities and resorting to the use of irregular-sized lots on which to build new units and ease their very real housing crisis.
It may or may not have been easy for Opticus to find space in Columbus. But it sure will be a lot more difficult to do the same in Oak Park, which cannot expand its boundaries and has only 2% of the square mileage of Columbus and nearly three times the population density — even if a developer could resort to finding an irregular-sized lot.
I have to ask if expunging the existing ordinance for single-family zoning will actually result in more housing units. Also, will it permit current and future Oak Park owners to expand the footprint of their existing house without going through the process and expense of a public hearing of the Zoning Board of Appeals to add as little as 10% of the “maximum building coverage” on their un-expandable lots?
I ask this recalling a ZBA meeting I attended two or three years ago where some new homeowners had applied for a permit to expand the kitchen of their small brick bungalow on the 600 block of South Cuyler. To do so, they would have had to extend the rear of the house deeper into the back yard. The commission denied their request.
The former ZBA chair callously commented, “You don’t need the space.” Yes, they did, probably still do, as do many homeowners in Oak Park. What will eliminating single-family zoning do for them?
Chris Donovan
Oak Park