Community Decision Making Blog Test

Neighborhoods across Chicago are responding to the impacts of new investment on housing affordability. Although residents and community stakeholders experience these changes first hand, demystifying the causes behind them can be a challenge.

A critical component of the Institute for Housing Studies’ (IHS) applied research model includes technical assistance and data analysis to community groups that highlight different factors behind changing neighborhood dynamics. These types of data can provide a greater understanding of the various reasons behind neighborhood change, inform community-led conversions, and provide evidence that can amplify the day-to-day experiences of community members.

A recent partnership between IHS, community residents, and local organizations informed the decision making process in two communities: East Garfield Park and Andersonville. In order to develop proactive strategies and promote inclusive decision-making, IHS’s data analysis has helped these neighborhoods craft solutions for different affordability challenges, market contexts, and investment activity.

Centering Proactive Anti-Displacement Strategies in East Garfield Park

How can communities anticipate and respond to new investment and work to ensure that it will benefit existing legacy residents? That is the question at the center of a community planning process led by IHS, the Metropolitan Planning Council, and Garfield Park Community Council. In July, the Preserving Affordability Together pilot brought together residents, religious leaders, local businesses, and other neighborhood stakeholders for the first of a series of community meetings. The goal of the pilot is to support East Garfield Park community members in the development of a set of data-informed principals to guide anti-displacement policies and strategies.

Before residents started brainstorming goals and strategies, IHS kicked off the community planning process by presenting research on economic, demographic, and housing market trends in East Garfield Park to highlight current conditions, emerging challenges, and opportunities for equitable development. IHS’s data analysis showcased early warning signs of growing housing affordability pressures, such as rapid home price appreciation and investor demand for area properties. As the neighborhood’s housing market stabilizes after the foreclosure crisis, recent, rapid price appreciation paired with the vulnerability of many lower-income residents highlights the risk that increasing demand for housing in the area poses to current renters and homeowners. For example, residents, many whom have lived and worked in East Garfield Park for their entire lives, voiced concerns about rising rents contributing to the loss of unsubsidized affordable rental housing and increased property taxes pricing them out of their community.

The data also showed that not all areas of East Garfield Park are experiencing displacement pressures in the same way. While some blocks see rising housing costs, other blocks face the legacy of long-term disinvestment. These blocks have deteriorating housing stock in need of investment and substantial numbers of publicly- and privately-owned vacant lots. Additionally, almost half of the affordable housing in East Garfield Park is located in 2 to 4 unit buildings, and preserving this stock is critical to maintaining housing affordability as the costs of potential redevelopment of vacant land for housing will likely not be affordable.

Figure 1: Displacement pressure and uneven market recovery in and around East Garfield Park

The dynamics affecting neighborhood change can be uneven and differentiated within a neighborhood. There can be geographic variation in market conditions within a neighborhood that may point to different types of strategies. There can also be variation in different types of residents in a community that may have different housing needs. The varied drivers of neighborhood change call for a multi-pronged approach.

With IHS’s data in mind, community members discussed existing neighborhood conditions and highlighted opportunities for future action. Community members identified a set of housing priorities, including stabilizing current homeowners through property tax relief, aiding housing cost burdened renters by establishing affordable housing programs and pathways to homeownership, and passing policies that leverage broad community benefits from new investment. Community members emphasized the importance of input from local stakeholders before and during the development process, not after development has been built. Residents, churches, nonprofits, and activists took the initial steps to form a coalition in order to strengthen African American leadership, work across various stakeholder interests, and continue similar community led processes to ensure development without displacement in East Garfield Park is more than just a slogan.

Weighing the Benefits and Risks of Rezoning in Andersonville

Many communities have turned to zoning as a legal tool to influence neighborhood change. In Andersonville, community members formed a committee to address the impacts of redevelopment on neighborhood character and the loss of the existing historic housing stock by proposing a measure to ‘downzone’ eight residential blocks of South Andersonville.

Downzoning entails rezoning a residential neighborhood to allow less dense forms of by right, or allowable, new development. The proposed downzoning from RT-4 to RS-3 would allow single family homes and two-flats, whereas the current zoning of South Andersonville allows single family homes, two- flats, townhomes, condominiums, and small multifamily buildings. Within the area proposed for rezoning, residential buildings with more than one housing unit total 92 percent of all parcels and 97 percent of all housing units. Downzoning would change a portion of this housing stock into nonconforming uses, limiting property owners’ ability to expand or substantially renovate their homes without substantial additional paperwork.

Figure 2. Map of the proposed rezoning area’s housing stock, 2013

Figure 3. Table of the proposed rezoning area’s housing stock, 2019. The proposed rezoning area houses a large share of 2 to 4 unit buildings, condominiums, and buildings with 5 or more units.

Alderman Matt Martin convened a panel of housing, transportation, and zoning experts from IHS, the City of Chicago Bureau of Zoning & Land Use, and Chicago Cityscape to provide context on the changing nature of housing demand within the neighborhood, the broad impacts of downzoning on relative affordability, and potential strategies to achieve community goals.

Zoning regulations are complex, and downzoning’s anticipated impacts can be even more difficult to disentangle. Although some community members expressed concerns over luxury condominium redevelopment that would be possible under the current zoning for the area, other IHS analysis of parcel level data revealed that conversions from 2 to 6 unit buildings to single family homes were occurring at a comparable pace. Redevelopment activity in the South Andersonville community mirrors a citywide trend: In strong markets, a large majority of conversions to single family homes and condominiums occurred from the redevelopment of 2 to 4 unit buildings, a valuable source of Chicago’s unsubsidized affordable housing. There were concerns downzoning might make some of this housing stock nonconforming and create unintended disincentives for this segment of the market.

Strategies to preserve South Andersonville’s historic housing stock may include a suite of interventions, but downzoning may do little to halt market forces that are driving conversions. The proposed downzoning could exacerbate redevelopment pressures of the neighborhood’s existing housing stock while simultaneously preventing new construction of 3 to 4 unit buildings and small apartment buildings. Since Chicago’s zoning ordinance has few design guidelines for residential districts, it is unlikely downzoning will curb new development’s impact on neighborhood character.

Downzoning may result in unintended consequences by diminishing the diversity of South Andersonville’s existing housing stock. A mix of housing types and ages, such as single family homes, renter- and owner-occupied 2 to 4 flats, and apartments, allows greater economic, tenure, and household type diversity at the neighborhood level. The historic 2 to 4 flat stock has contributed to this diversity by providing flexibility for changing household needs, enabling mixed forms of tenure, and facilitating pathways to homeownership.

Figure 4. Construction year of two-unit renter-occupied buildings in the Chicago metropolitan area, 1919 or earlier to 2013. Most renter-occupied units in two-flat buildings in Chicago were built in the early 1900s. The construction rate of this housing type has been declining ever since.

By restricting allowable development to single family homes and two-flats, downzoning may also slowly change the tenure composition of the community and provide fewer housing opportunities for renters. Although the RS-3 zoning district legally permits two-flats, new construction of this building type is relatively uncommon today. Of all residential construction across Chicago, new construction of renter-occupied two-flats contributed a mere 2 percent of housing units throughout the last two decades. When two-flats are built, it is likely that units are for-sale condominiums rather than apartments.

Downzoning is a blunt instrument, while the market forces shaping the Andersonville community may require targeted strategies that can preserve the diverse housing stock and maintain relative housing affordability.

Data in Action

An important component of IHS’s applied research model includes partnerships with community-based stakeholders. These partnerships allow IHS to highlight the lived experiences of community members and gain a deeper understanding of changing housing market dynamics as they emerge. IHS’s role as a data intermediary in East Garfield Park and South Andersonville illustrates how data analysis that is tailored to neighborhood context can advance community-centered discussions about unique housing affordability challenges.

Data should play a core role in every community-centered neighborhood planning processes. Data can shed light on new information, change perspectives of local residents and stakeholders, and guide current policy discussions. It equips community members with information to ensure decisions align with community goals, whether that includes preserving existing housing diversity, providing greater access to affordable housing, or stabilizing long-term legacy residents. Understanding the unique drivers behind neighborhood change allows stakeholders to assess existing opportunities and risks to proactively develop targeted strategies in anticipation of, not in response to, new investment.