What do the words “preservation” and “progress” have in common? Well, they both start with a P.
In this progressive ’burb, the preservationist movement might be expected to maintain our historical landmarks, and ensure tourists and residents will be able to enjoy them for generations. But they’ve given themselves a much larger mandate: prevent any and all new multifamily developments.
“Wright-Sized Oak Park” was founded to prevent the development of a small apartment building at the corner of Chicago and Ridgeland, ostensibly because the parcel is inside a historic district. They succeeded, but I expect they will rise again to defend the boundaries of their district should any developers make the mistake of proposing a new multifamily building there.
The local preservationist social media group has post after post complaining about new developments, or even worse, complaining about existing multifamily housing with thinly coded language.
The Historical Preservation Commission (HPC) does its part. It recently refused to issue a COA (Certificate of Appropriateness) to a new development because of the imagined impacts this building would have on the historic Boulevard Arcade building. The new building would be built on the parking lot behind the Boulevard Arcade building and would not touch the existing historic landmark.
The new building, a 10 story Art Deco tower, was deemed “out of scale.” Like the 1929 10 story Art Deco Medical Arts Building? No doubt the HPC would have tried to prevent its construction as well if it had existed at the time.
The unanimous decision by the HPC — which cited all of the usual NIMBY complaints: traffic, crowding, affordability, none of which have anything to do with historic preservation — shows the true colors of the commission. Aided by a massive ring fence of historic preservation district boundaries, the HPC protects large portions of Oak Park from new development.
This preserves the housing stock as it was a century ago. It also preserves the demographic makeup of these neighborhoods as it was a century ago.
The purpose of a system is what it does. Our historic preservation districts were founded in an era where Oak Park was terrified of racial turnover and white flight. This isn’t a coincidence. These districts stopped multifamily housing development in its tracks, and made the existing housing stock much more expensive to maintain and update. This effectively bars entry to renters and lower income homeowners.
The village board rightly ignored the advice of the HPC and issued a Certificate of Appropriateness for the new building, which allows it to move forward … for now. But I’d call on the village board to do more. As we embark on the difficult task of re-imagining our outdated zoning codes, we need to come to grips with the outsized power that the preservationist movement wields over the future of our village.
Preservation isn’t progress, in fact, it’s the opposite. It’s appropriate in small doses, in targeted areas. We should be able to preserve historic gems, and tourist revenue, without setting entire neighborhoods in amber and preventing badly needed new housing.
Josh is a passionate urbanist and entrepreneur who has lived in Chicagoland for 30 years and has called Oak Park home for over a decade.