Zoning Rewrite May Be Worth Wait for Many

The city's major streets, usually served by a Chicago Transit Authority bus line, consist largely of two- and three-story buildings with storefronts or offices on the first floor with apartments on the upper floors. A new zoning category will allow owners of thousands of buildings along 700 linear miles of streets to use the first floors for residential use, previously prohibited in business and commercial districts.

Not only will that make many of those properties less of the white elephants they have become, the zoning change will open doors for residential redevelopers, such as providers of affordable housing, suggests James Capraro, executive director of the Greater Southwest Development Corp. Many of the buildings are owned by mom-and-pop investors and users.

"There are lots of neighborhoods in Chicago that are no longer competitive these days," Capraro told a panel at the American Planning Association convention Wednesday. Those storefronts serve as "windows for residential districts," he adds, which can provide a poor view if they are vacant or underused.

Although planners spent much time during their four days hearing about pedestrian-friendly neighborhood redevelopments, the market does not support that much retail space in many of the city's communities, Capraro and others attest. "We probably have enough demand for 300 miles of 'B' zoning," says Capraro, a member of the Mayor's Zoning Reform Commission that is leading the rewrite effort. "There is a real need for affordable housing in Chicago."

Senior housing could be an ideal use, Capraro suggests, considering many of the buildings' locations on bus lines, most of those eventually feeding into the CTA's rapid transit system.

Admitting the city probably embarked on the zoning ordinance rewrite a few years too late, Alderman William Banks says the first draft should be ready in early fall rather than July as previously expected. Although the process already has included exhaustive citizen participation, the first draft will be presented to neighborhood groups again before the zoning maps are redrawn.

"The system has never been a more open system," says Banks, predicting city council approval will be a breeze as a result. "We feel this is something that will be respected across the country."

The city was among the first in the US to have a zoning ordinance when it adopted the original version in 1923, says Jack Swenson of the city's department of planning and development. The second, and most recent, revision came in 1957.