Frank Lloyd Wright homes in Oak Park are going to be demolished.
This is the opening claim of a video by Ken Weiss and Dalton Sturm released on the YouTube channel This House and shared across Facebook last weekend.
“No, this isn’t clickbait. This one will also be demolished, so will this one, and this one,” said Weiss in the video showing pictures of the historic Wright homes which help define Oak Park’s identity.
Carollina Song is the owner of one of the homes shown in the video, and she made one thing clear: Her house is not going anywhere. She had the opportunity to tell Weiss as much at Shape Oak Park’s sometimes raucous informational meeting on the proposed changes to single-family zoning on Sept. 14.
The first floor of the Community Recreation Center on Madison Street was packed with people and fueled with tension. The room that was used for the meeting could not hold the people who showed up, easily over 100, and spilled into the lobby where the crowd was still tight. One attendee said it was “tone deaf” and “out-of-touch” for the organizers to not prepare for such a large crowd.
“Imagine how I felt when I watched that misleading, misinformation, propaganda, and learned that apparently my house is due to be demolished imminently,” said Song in an interview with Wednesday Journal.
Song said she is “maniacally in love” with her house with absolutely no plans to sell to a developer, and she believes the village would never allow for the landmark home to be changed even once she is gone. Currently, none of the homes featured in the video are up for sale.
“I support the Shape Oak Park proposed zoning changes. I think that they are due, and I think that they are reasonable, and I think that the racist underpinnings of the single-family zoning is enough,” said Song.
Weiss expanded on his claim in the over 12-minute-long video explaining how the proposed zoning changes could allow for different unit types to be built in place of existing single-family homes making the original definitive statement more conditional.
New developments can only happen if a property owner chooses to sell and an advisory review would be required for potential new construction inside one of Oak Park’s historic districts. For demolition of a home inside a district, additional approvals are required from the Historic Preservation Commission. Weiss highlighted that old homes that sit outside of the district do not receive that protection.
Many additional concerns that Weiss shared in the video such as ensuring affordability and a lack of space to expand were echoed by attendees of the Shape Oak Park presentation.
When the statement that single-family homes will not be eliminated was made by the presenter, shouts rose from the audience calling it a lie or “disingenuous at best.”
The zoning recommendations from the Opticos consulting firm outline three new zoning designations in place of the existing eight. The proposed changes remove single-family only zones to allow for mixed-use buildings such as duplexes, four-plexes, and in specific cases, a larger multi-unit building. Single-family units are still allowed, but other housing types will be allowed alongside them as well.
One attendee of the meeting, Kevin Kell, has been following this discussion and attending meetings since March. He shared he was “frustrated” with what was being presented and wishes the additional tools that will be needed to achieve these goals of affordability were being shared in tandem.
“It’s been said at board meetings, this is only one piece of the puzzle, but I haven’t heard what the other piece of the puzzle is,” said Kell. “To me, let’s step back, slow down, let’s identify what is the real purpose and needs that we have, and come up with solutions on how to get us there.”
Kell said he is concerned about an increase in absentee homeowners if existing units are turned into multi-units and rented out.
“It’s been shown absentee landlords do not have buy-in into community like somebody living there, especially as a homeowner,” said Kell. “I have buy-in because I have a lot invested in this community, and I don’t want to lose that.”
There will be five more information sessions hosted throughout the village in September and three public hearings with the Plan Commission are set for October with the commission’s recommendations to the village board and the board could have a final vote by the end of the month. The first public hearing will be Oct. 1.