The mix of housing stock in Oak Park has always been one of its strengths. Beyond there being big houses and smaller houses, when you get south of Chicago Avenue there is a long-built mix of single-family homes and concentrations of multi-family buildings on Austin, Harlem, Lake, Washington, Harrison and Roosevelt. More than that though are the sprinklings of two-flats and four-unit apartment buildings you find on many or most blocks across the village.
Long-accepted, heck, they were built a century ago, these structures are fully integrated into Oak Park’s built view. They add housing options at a more affordable cost and give the village what is left of its economic diversity and add to its character.
For us that is the starting point for the worthy conversation now underway to reshape Oak Park’s zoning code to effectively eliminate our exclusionary single-family zoning.
This is a positive and necessary change but it is not in any way a full reimagining of what the village will look like going forward. It opens up new possibilities of gradually adding more “missing middle” housing options whether those are townhouses, two-flats, coach houses or somewhat more dense additions such as a five-story apartment building on a commercial corner such as Ridgeland and Chicago. That solid project was inexplicably turned away by the village recently.
Yes, we’re all in on the housing theories that exclusively single-family zoning is an effective and destructive way to limit racial diversity. Face it, virtually all housing dictums in America were designed to limit where Black and Brown people could buy and feel welcomed.
Oak Park, through the thoughtful SHAPE process being led by Village President Vicki Scaman, is moving steadily toward a bold change in our zoning. We’re ready.