After spending tens of thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours on developing an affordable-housing ordinance, the Lake County Board has buried the proposal over the protests of several board members.
“We put the nail in the coffin today,” said Angelo Kyle (D-Waukegan), who was among six board members who fought to keep the ordinance alive.
“It’s dead because I don’t think this board is serious about affordable housing,” said Audrey Nixon (D-North Chicago).
Board member Larry Leafblad (R-Grayslake), who chairs the Planning, Building and Zoning Committee overseeing development of the ordinance, tried to offer hope that it could be resurrected.
“We recognize this is frustrating,” Leafblad said. “There is no question about that. [But] this particular vehicle was just not going forward, so we’re backed up. We are going to do it again.”
The proposal had drawn criticism at a joint meeting of the Planning, Building and Zoning and the Community and Economic Development Committees earlier this month. Leafblad, saying that many of the homes being built in his district are selling for less than $150,000, also suggested that adopting the housing ordinance might ultimately become unnecessary.
“There is no reason for government to pass a law to do something and require somebody to do something that is already being done by the private sector,” he said.
Board member Bonnie Thomson Carter (R-Ingleside) said the board needed to agree on how to meet the need for affordable housing before it enacted anything.
“I think the intent is to move forward on this [but] there has to be a consensus first among us as board members before we spend hundreds and hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars of taxpayers’ money on just ideas that are floating around out there,” Carter said.
Chairman Suzi Schmidt (R-Lake Villa) also said it is still possible for an affordable housing component to be added to the Unified Development Ordinance, adopted last year in an effort to control development.
But she also said it could be a meaningless exercise because 90 percent of the county’s development is in municipalities, which would not be affected by the measure. The Unified Development Ordinance sets standards for unincorporated areas.
Kyle and Nixon, who are the only African-Americans on the 23-member board and represent two of Lake County’s least affluent communities, didn’t seem surprised by the apparent lack of commitment to the affordable housing ordinance.
“As long as the eastern part of the county has its share of affordable housing and the western part of the county has none, it’s still OK,” Nixon said.
“Unless we bite the bullet and get serious about this, it’s not going anywhere.”
“The same people who get up on the board floor and say they’re behind it and they’re going to do it are the same ones who go behind the scenes and dismantle it,” Kyle said.
“The [political] winds changed directions . . . and the whole approach toward it took a turn for the worse,” Kyle said.
Leafblad, Carter and Schmidt, who play prominent roles on the board, represent the county’s northwest quadrant, which is in the midst of a housing boom.
The controversy over the failed proposal came as the board voted 16-6 to repeal a resolution that required the Zoning Board of Appeals to hold public hearings on the affordable housing ordinance.
The latest proposal would have required developers to build one moderately priced home for every 10 housing units in a subdivision. It also would have given the county the authority to regulate the resale price of the home for 20 years.
The resolution was approved in November at the final board meeting under former Chairman Jim LaBelle, a Zion Republican.
A recent county study found that more than 70,000 people commute daily into the county for work, exacerbating traffic congestion that the County Board has identified as its top target for improvement.
The same 1997 study said a family must have an annual household income of $63,000 to afford a median-priced home in Lake County, which at that time was $144,000, according to the Multiple Listing Service of Northern Illinois.
