Letters to the Editor

Chicago’s dire financial position will keep getting worse without drastic action. Making it easier to build homes and expand the city’s tax base is critical to addressing this budget gap. As housing costs continue rising, Chicago must make more homes. Failing to build new homes steals opportunities from families and pushes higher costs of living onto current and future Chicagoans.

Patricia Sharkey and Edgewater Residents for Responsible Development repeatedly invoke a 2006 downzoning referendum as proof that Broadway’s rezoning violates “community-driven planning.” They present that vote as a democratic ideal. It wasn’t.

In the editorial “Scrap this catastrophic transit tax grab, House Democrats, and be more realistic in the spring” from Oct. 30, the Tribune Editorial Board writes that “major events from our famed sports teams and at our superb concert venues are core to Chicago’s identity.”

I wish I could say I was surprised by the opposition to the proposed Broadway upzoning, but after 15 years of living in Edgewater, this feels like another instance in which my neighbors, who are otherwise well meaning, will end up putting parking over people and their own property values over everything else.

Rezoning Broadway will not be as dramatic as opponents such as Patricia Sharkey think it to be (“Edgewater residents offer a win-win compromise for Broadway,” Sept. 2), and it certainly won’t change Broadway overnight.

It is not surprising that we have seen recent opinion pieces opposing new housing: Patricia Sharkey’s op-ed on Broadway and Corinne Svoboda’s attack on the Old Town Canvas project (“YIMBY support for Old Town project sets dangerous precedent,” Sept. 4). With Old Town moving forward, Broadway’s upzoning headed to a vote, the elimination of parking minimums near transit and the potential approval of accessory dwelling unit legislation, Chicago is reaching a tipping point. The pro-housing YIMBY movement has arrived.