Oak Park’s village board unanimously approved village funding for a new affordable housing project on Clinton Avenue. The effort undertaken by the Oak Park Residence Corporation will rescue a small condo association facing heavy infrastructure investments its members cannot afford to make.
In its presentation to the village board, ResCorp said there are a number of such small and failing condo associations in the village.
The board approved a grant of $450,000 to ResCorp to support converting the condo building at 118 Clinton Ave. into a nine-unit affordable housing rental property. Board members supported the measure as a way to keep the building’s current residents from being priced out while adding to the village’s overall stock of affordable housing units.
“The more opportunities to leverage these funds to do things like this the better,” said Trustee Derek Eder. “To keep people where they are, to keep them able to afford to live in this community and to keep it great and vibrant.”
The deal with the Residence Corp comes as the building’s condominium association faced “a sizable capital investment need” and was “seeking an alternative to making that investment themselves,” according to village documents.
“There continues to be a number of troubled small condominium buildings here in Oak Park,” ResCorp wrote in its proposal to the board. “The lingering economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on individual household finances, combined with the rapid run up in interest rates, has contributed to a lack of reinvestment in condominium buildings, and prospective economic challenges for such condominium owners and associations going forward.”
“The village has identified failing small condominiums as both a challenge facing the community and a difficulty for owners of units in failing associations who may be ‘trapped’ and unable to exit. OPRC is seeking to address this challenge while also increasing the amount of affordable rental housing to serve HUD’s categories of very low-income and low-income members of our community.”
Once ResCorp takes over management of the property, the building will provide six affordable housing units for households earning less than 60% of the area median income, including two for households earning less than 50% of the area median income, and three units for households earning less than 80% of the area median income. Current residents of the building will be given an opportunity to stay in their units. ResCorp is offering three, six, and 12-month lease options for current owners to remain following the conversion, according to village staff.
A previous village board had given an identical grant to ResCorp for an undefined condo conversion project in March 2023, but the grant eventually expired. The local affordable housing provider was encouraged to return for grant funding once it found a suitable property for the project, according to village staff.
Prior to approving this grant, the village’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund had an available balance of over $1.7 million.