An affordable housing policy

I've been meaning to write about my experience representing my block club at the (48th Ward) alderman's Planning and Zoning meeting in July. It was at that meeting that the block club representatives voted in favor of a CPAN affordable housing set-aside policy. (I first wrote about this back in April.) The policy requires that for each planned development (a planned development cannot be built as of right) larger than 10 units, 10% of the units must be set aside for the CPAN program. A lottery is used to select among applicants, with 50% of the units reserved for 48th Ward residents.

From the caterwauling I've been hearing from some in the community, you'd think we'd just voted to rebuild Cabrini Green in Edgewater. This just demonstrates the ignorance of these people regarding the CPAN program -- and regarding affordable housing in general.

The CPAN program is meant to assist working people, with incomes of up to about $80,000 for a family of four, in buying their own home. It is not housing projects. It is not even housing for poor people. And it doesn't solve the housing problem for people on the extreme low end of the economic scale. But it at least makes more housing available to people with moderate incomes.

There are some who say that the market should always dictate the availability of housing, and that it is unfair that there are these people who get a bargain on their units while the rest of us pay market prices. I can't say that, lest I be called a hypocrite. Back when I bought my first home, I did so with the help of a loan subsidized by HUD that got me a below-market interest rate. Was this unfair to all the other people in my neighborhood who had to get more expensive mortgages?

Changing directions a bit... At that same alderman's meeting, I was instructed by my block club to vote against approval of a huge project on Broadway -- a block-long, five-story wall of a building that is out of scale with anything else on the street (see the summary of my survey). I didn't do a very good job of arguing my block club's position, however; the vote went against me 19-1. Ouch.