White postcards arrived in mailboxes across Oak Park last week, asking “SHOULD WE BE CONCERNED?” about ending single-family zoning. Members of the recently organized group Maybe in My Back Yard (MIMBY) Oak Park sent these cards, posing questions about potential impacts of sweeping changes to local zoning, which Oak Park’s village board is set to vote on at its July 28 meeting.
MIMBY Oak Park is a self-described ad hoc working group made up of “leading members of community groups,” including two former Historic Preservation Commission chairs, Lou Garapolo and Frank Heitzman. The group says it approaches new developments in Oak Park from the position of “maybe,” and sets its members apart from “NIMBYs.”
“We are not against new buildings in Oak Park. We seek win-win outcomes that meet the goals of everyone involved – residents, village government officials, and developers. We want the size and style of new buildings to fit in with their surroundings. We want more affordable housing. We want decisions about new buildings to include meaningful input from Oak Park’s citizens,” the group’s website reads.
Last August, the village board hired Opticos Design to study eliminating single-family zoning in Oak Park to create more “missing middle” housing. In March of this year, the village hosted workshops to educate the public on the consultant’s plans and gather community feedback.
On July 28, the board will vote on whether to accept the company’s recommendations. If the board votes to accept, the report will guide new zoning rules to be created later this year. The village released the recommendations, which would most notably eliminate zoning that restricts developments to single-family buildings, to the public last week on EngageOakPark.com/Shape.
But before that village board vote, at a July 21 meeting the board will consider a motion to place an advisory referendum on the zoning issue on the ballot this November.
Trustee Jim Taglia has pushed this idea. And Trustee Cory Wesley, who clearly supports the zoning change, has seconded the motion to allow a discussion at the board table.
MIMBY member Josh Klayman, who taught at the Booth School of Business at University of Chicago and ran for trustee in 2019 said the implementation of these changes, and the process of deciding development in Oak Park, should be “more democratic, [and] more transparent.”
“We’ve been talking about this before the single-family zoning issue really came to fore, but when it did, we spotted this as one of those examples,” said Klayman. “An important example of one of those situations where decisions were not being made in a way that we thought was sufficiently representative.”
Lehman, a lifelong Oak Parker who worked for the U.S. Treasury, and Klayman said they would like to see the village taking a more “energetic outreach” to residents, potentially connecting directly with community groups and congregations. They also said they would like to see the village ask for community input much earlier in the process, arguing that by the time community meetings are held, “it’s pretty much a foregone conclusion.”
They said these have been issues concerning new developments for years, as well as an issue with the zoning changes. MIMBY’s postcard poses “questions, not concerns” to the community, which they hope residents and trustees will consider before making a decision on the recommendations.
Lehman and Klayman said they have spoken with Village President Vicki Scaman and a representative from Opticos Design about their concerns. Scaman, who has so far been hesitant to support a referendum, pushed for the village to release Optico’s report to the public last week.
At the bottom of the postcard, MIMBY asks residents to tell the village board if they would like to have a referendum about zoning.
While Lehman and Klayman support the referendum, they said there is a much larger issue with developments in Oak Park. Klayman said he supports developments that are “compatible” with surrounding buildings and that “have some attention to the aesthetic value.” On MIMBY’s website, the group lists the Grove Apartments on Madison Street as an example of a successful project.
However, Klayman said the overarching mission of MIMBY is to create a more democratic process — not to advocate for a specific kind of development. “If there was a good process, and it generated a building that we, us seven or people or whatever, didn’t like, then I’d say, well, you know, as the old saying goes, well, the people have spoken. I’ll say, I wouldn’t have built that thing, but it was a fair process.”