Affordable housing in Lake County would blossom along existing and future train and bus lines under a task force proposal that attempts to break a deadlock over a section on affordable housing in the Unified Development Ordinance.
The task force recommended so-called Transit Oriented Developments clustered within a mile of transit lines in municipalities and unincorporated Lake County to promote affordable housing and mixed-use developments.
The goal is to locate housing for low- to middle-income families where they can walk, bus or bike to work, including dwellings over storefronts and in commercial and industrial areas. This would cut down on traffic, too, officials reason.
The Lake County Board on April 11 adopted a new Unified Development Ordinance to guide zoning and development in the unincorporated areas of the county.
The document narrowly escaped defeat because it lacks an acceptable affordable housing section, but county officials mandated proposals on that issue within 90 days.
If approved, the task force proposals would become the new affordable housing section of the ordinance.
“Our goal is to have the Zoning Board of Appeals hold a hearing on July 10, which would just make the 90-day requirement,” said Philip Rovang, the county’s director of planning and development.
The task force report identified 50 sites in municipalities and unincorporated Lake County where Transit Oriented Developments might be suitable.
“I’m pleased there is a new proposal that looks across the county to provide affordable housing, not only in the unincorporated area,” Rovang said. “This could act as a model for municipalities to use within their village limits.”
The affordable housing task force report was presented recently to a joint meeting of the Planning, Building and Zoning Committee and the Community and Economic Development Committee.
It is intended to provide incentives, including reductions in certain zoning standards, to developers to build affordable housing.
One key feature of the Transit Oriented Development proposal is it would permit the highest population density standards in unincorporated Lake County, up to 15 dwelling units per acre.
This continues to be a sore point with three County Board members who have opposed high population density developments in the unincorporated reaches of the county, where single-family dwellings are the norm.
Multifamily developments belong in the cities, said Sandy Cole (R-Grayslake).
Cole praised the task force report for placing less emphasis on density bonuses, which had been proposed earlier to allow builders to construct extra housing at greater profit if they built housing for low- to medium-income families.
“It’s clear density bonuses were not affordable housing,” Cole said. “It was sort of a greed thing.”
Another critic, Bonnie Thomson Carter (R-Ingleside), said flatly: “I’m not interested in (high-density) zoning in my district. I worked very hard to take all multifamily housing out of my district.
County Board members complained that high-density developments would bring more children into an area, placing greater stresses on schools and raising property taxes to pay for school expansion.
Mary Ellen Tamasy, executive director of the Lake County Affordable Housing Commission, who served on the task force, said the group expressly focused on concerns raised by County Board members.
