A question for my NIMBY (Not in My Backyard) and MIMBY (Maybe in My Backyard) and Wright-Sized Oak Park friends who are against revising the current zoning code to allow more smaller multifamily housing in Oak Park as one way to address housing affordability:
Do you believe our local zoning restrictions have played a role in causing high housing prices in Oak Park?
This is a reality check.
It’s not like asking a MAGA devotee to believe Ivermectin cures COVID or whether 200 anonymous CIA agents incited the rioting at the Capitol on January 6.
If you believe that our zoning is not a cause in what is shaping up to be a defining issue of the next Presidential election — housing affordability — it’s hard to have a discussion.
Same if you believe that Wall Street greed is the only reason for high housing costs. Just like conversation is hard with my Newmaxed-MAGA relatives.
I’ll put it plainly: single-family zoning is a primary (but not sole) culprit making Oak Park housing, like most urban areas in America, unaffordable for most income levels.
That’s why the Oak Park Village Board is taking steps to revise the zoning code.
Should they do it? Yes.
Will it work? Who knows?
But one thing’s for sure. If we continue down our current zoning path, the million-dollar Oak Park home will not be an exception.
The proposed zoning changes, by the way, are not in my self-interest. Me and my fellow Oak Park Baby Boomers are grandfathered in on housing costs. We mostly already own our houses/condos and will ride our home equity to our graves (and then leave our estates to heirs who won’t be able to afford to live in Oak Park).
Has Oak Park seen an effort to sidestep single-family zoning over the last hundred-plus years?
Yes. Remember that Oak Park’s population surged to 66,000 around 1940? In 2020, the population was only 54,000. Where did those additional 12,000 people live? They were squeezed into the existing housing stock.
How did that happen?
Lots of Oak Parkers converted their single-family homes into bootleg two-flats. Those rental units still dot many quiet streets, including mine. Having reached venerable ages, these two-flats are “grandfathered in” even though they often technically violate the single-family zoning.
Should there be an election referendum on changing the zoning code? No.
Let our village trustees, who are studying the issue in depth and taking comments, make the call rather than NIMBY’s who hope to control the outcome in low-turnout municipal elections.
If the trustees really screw things up, there is always the next election to vote them out.