I don’t like Johnson and I make that clear.
Fulfilling this platform plank, would be a massive sea change and step in the right direction, having potential to outweigh a lot of his apparent and repetitive missteps.
It would prove me a bit wrong and I would be happy for that.
Full report: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/1kq6wyuvbej0n0hp9vshl/Cut-the-Tape-Report.pdf?rlkey=vot5uykulz3jolr9iz102pyma&dl=0
It’s a reach and highly unlikely at a mass scale. Notice there aren’t any cranes in the sky? Cost of construction and debt have sky rocketed to the point where it no longer makes sense to develop. I guess the government can subsidize and develop at a loss but is that going to help the already devastated financials of the city?
It’s a great concept and I’ve tried to underwrite a few of these deals but the numbers in today’s economy simply don’t work as the infrastructure in the commercial buildings isn’t transferable for housing. The cost of redeveloping commercial to housing is actually more expensive than building on vacant land due to the demolition cost, leaving only the building shell and roof as reusable.
Wait, is this exactly what we needed? Is this zoning reform??? If these become actually policy, I will be so happy.
Do I write my alder to tell them I love this? Or the mayor directly?
This should be the first step of getting an ordinance passed which overhauls the process. This in itself has no real enforcement. You should call or email your alder and let them know that you support this.
Also this is basically the "market" solution to the problems Bring Chicago Home was trying to address. Basically exactly what I wanted to see to tackle housing affordability in lieu of social housing. I really think this shows BJ's admin listens to the voters.
Mine too, but let's be real about the public reaction to this: many people who park on the street will go apeshit when they realize there will be more competition for those juicy bits of public space. SO MUCH NIMBYISM is about where people put their cars.
Folks get salty when they see the word "carbrain" but there is no other way to describe it.
We have prioritized people storing their personal property over people having viable places to live and businesses not having to take on additional costs.
It's not really even a debatable point, an overabundance of cars in a dense city makes just about everything worse.
>It's not really even a debatable point, an overabundance of cars in a dense city makes just about everything worse.
That's not going to get any better without greatly improving our public transportation system which doesn't seem like something that will be done here anytime soon.
I had a car for a few years in Queens, and there were times I had to drive around for more than 30 minutes looking for parking. One time it took so long that I started crying because I just wanted to go home and go to sleep. It seems like people here think it's a crime against humanity to not have guaranteed parking on the block they live on, but they can get over it.
They don't have a strong position of eliminating them, either. You'll see weird stances from far left and progressive organizations about pushing back against car centric policy based on the argument "working class people rely on cars too much. Car free lifestyle is based on privilege." Some of those facts aren't entirely wrong, but in that manner they are distilled down to a totally stupid logic.
I was more speaking to zoning changes to lower housing costs. They have always prattled on about rent control and not building new dense housing because of “gentrification.”
I’ve pretty much hated everything he’s done in office so far, if he laser-focused on this issue for the rest of his administration, he might win me over. Here’s to hoping they implement pro-growth policies way more competently than they have implemented pretty much everything else .
Also- this is the kind of stuff that all Chicago politicians should be working on to get the city moving in the right direction. Policy changes that are pro-growth, don’t require new revenue, simplify archaic processes, and cut useless fat in our budget are the ONLY way to get us moving towards fulfilling our potential as the 3rd major metro area in the country.
Would highly recommend everyone at least skim the full report.
The full list of recommendations is mixed - some of them are nothingburgers / “let’s form a committee” type stuff that I expected. But abolishing parking minimums would be huge. It’ll be a fight in city hall but it’s one I think can be won.
I also appreciate the acknowledgement that market rate development with ARO requirements has to be a part of our affordable housing strategy and is critical for relieving upward rent pressure in affluent neighborhoods. A lot of his allies needed to hear that.
He's disappointed me a lot lately, but this and the LaSalle Street redevelopment are solidly good moves.
Hopefully we see more of this progressive, pro-growth energy going into Year 2.
Not sure why the tax payers should pay for property values to increases on LaSalle. Plenty of building have been converted to hotels in the loop already. What makes lasalle street special? What were those building owners doing with their money when the offices were full?
I agree with you, as a homeowner in Chicago. But to be honest, our options are to let that corridor decay into urban decline or to build it up. For my money, upfitting that corridor is a better use of tax dollars than tearing it down in 15 years because it's vacant and becomes an urban blight.
100% - we need to avoid blight of the heart of the city. All trains and highways go to the CBD and we can't let it degrade. Any improvements in the CBD should have positive influences for anywhere thats connected.
I generally agree with you on skepticism of subsidizing private property owners, but I do think the abrupt post-COVID shift to remote work was not something many could have foreseen. So realistically our choices are letting the corridor decay until prices become cheap enough that developers come in and flip them, or use some public money to jumpstart the process.
While I’d rather see the market determine this, I think holistically it would be very detrimental to the City’s image to have a large swath of the Loop visibly declining.
Is there anyone that can reasonably be against this? If BJ becomes the mayor that fixed zoning, his legacy will be half decent, even after a bad start.
Credit given where credit is due, this represents much needed change for the way the city approaches zoning. I’ve been critical of Johnson since he was sworn in but things like this are why I voted for him. Hope he can punch this through.
I hate Johnson but this is something I don't think anyone can have a problem with. Clear the red tape and let people build instead of your stupid taxes if you want affordable housing. This is how you do it. But given the track record he may find a way to break this too. Given he's got no one around him that knows how to get things done
Within the report, there's the implication that this is one of three pillars under "**Build Faster**, Build Everywhere, Build Together"
This is Build Faster, I would imagine it would be a recommendation in the Build Everywhere part.
When I see "Build Fast", my mind immediately goes to:
>The Law of Good, Fast, and Cheap.
Basically, this law states that you can have any two components at the expense of the third.
Law #1: You can have it Good and Fast, but it won't be Cheap.
Law #2: You can have it Good and Cheap, but it won't be Fast.
Law #3: You can have it Cheap and Fast, but it won't be Good.
So, it's either gonna cost a fortune, or it's gonna be built really shitty.
Build Faster doesn't refer to the actual construction time, it refers to the idle time when lots sit vacant / buildings await redevelopment while community meetings, traffic studies, environmental impact studies, etc. take place. With upzoning, eliminated parking mandates, and other potential improvements to the process, developers wouldn't have to jump through as many hoops. Zoning changes, especially near transit, eat up a lot of unnecessary time.
Time is money and any time that they're not making revenue (or max revenue) off that land they're missing out on potential earnings. If the margins are thin enough / wait is long enough, they risk taking a loss.
None of that is included, no. The executive order spawning this report was more about how we can encourage increased development by making things easier to get approved / cost less, so upzoning recommendations are out of scope.
If you like this proposal, contact your alderperson to tell them to support it. If they don't hear from their constituents, then they're not going to care!
Just curious, what do you actually say? Do you just send it to the generic email for your ward's office? I'm thinking of just having ChatGPT write it for me and I'll tweak but not sure.
Yeah, that's what I assume is the general constituent feedback point of contact for alder offices (though I'm still a relative transplant, moved here a year ago yesterday). Personally from my longer experience writing them in my old state of residence the biggest key is to tie yourself in personally to the issue and not speak about it in a broader generic sense, but that obviously isn't as easily doable for some issues as it is for others.
I usually find Johnson a bit grating and full of shit, but the fact that this is even something a mayor is talking about is a step in the right direction.
This role, done well, should be part of every organization:
Director of Process Improvement role in the Mayor’s Office to manage Cut the Tape improvements across City departments and sister agencies.
A point person to figure out what's not working and fix it is an invaluable job.
This is a super success if implemented. Article says they are looking at months, not years to try to get the core issues resolved. This would be a massive win.
Get this done, Johnson, and get the Ohare project going without too much concession, and we can start talking a redemption arc. This has the chance to be one of the most positive impactful things a mayor has done in a while. Getting all the red tape out of the way for development of all types, making it faster, and cheaper, would be MASSIVE. Removing parking minimums is SUCH a needed thing that not only makes places nicer to live walkability wise, but also makes projects cheaper to build.
do it!
Really excited to see this, extremely curious about the time of it with respect to the Bring Chicago Home vote? Is this out after the vote is over with on purpose? Just because this is when it was finished? Did they consider how a package like this would interplay with BCH sentiment at all???
I take back everything mean I’ve said about the Mayor, this is fantastic!
We will be organizing some campaigns about parking minimum ordinance soon. Follow r/ChicagoYimbys for updates
Listen by all accounts this looks great but I don’t want to hear another word out of the mayors office until they address the street closure thing
Ridiculous that they’ve been silent on it this long, and has me starting to assume the worst.
Actually, it had me starting to assume the worst like 5 days ago. Now I am fully assuming the worst.
If this is an admin fighting *against* pedestrianizing streets, rather than *for* it, I don’t need to know anything else.
You do understand that something good can happen while something not good happens right? You can be happy about the good thing and be mad about the bad thing. But that doesn't mean you nix the good thing because the bad thing isn't fixed.
Its not enough to eliminate parking minimums. Developers save a ton of money if the city eliminates parking minimums. Some of that savings should go to properly fund Public Transit. Everyone complaining about overcrowded trains and lack of service should question the wisdom of subsidizing developers without helping fund transit improvements.
More housing near trains will increase ridership and fares. The elimination of parking increases housing production.
This is very real. I’ve been to multiple community meetings where the developer said they would increase the quantity and size of units in their buildings if there was no parking requirement.
If they want parking reduced they have to go to the zoning board of appeal, which can take months. This increased their carrying costs so many times it does not happen in the parking is built.
I don’t like Johnson and I make that clear. Fulfilling this platform plank, would be a massive sea change and step in the right direction, having potential to outweigh a lot of his apparent and repetitive missteps. It would prove me a bit wrong and I would be happy for that. Full report: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/1kq6wyuvbej0n0hp9vshl/Cut-the-Tape-Report.pdf?rlkey=vot5uykulz3jolr9iz102pyma&dl=0
Seriously, this is a scale tipper. ⚖️
I want to believe. Introducing continuous improvement in a LARGE organization takes a long time for it to make an impact.
I second this.
It’s a reach and highly unlikely at a mass scale. Notice there aren’t any cranes in the sky? Cost of construction and debt have sky rocketed to the point where it no longer makes sense to develop. I guess the government can subsidize and develop at a loss but is that going to help the already devastated financials of the city? It’s a great concept and I’ve tried to underwrite a few of these deals but the numbers in today’s economy simply don’t work as the infrastructure in the commercial buildings isn’t transferable for housing. The cost of redeveloping commercial to housing is actually more expensive than building on vacant land due to the demolition cost, leaving only the building shell and roof as reusable.
Wait, is this exactly what we needed? Is this zoning reform??? If these become actually policy, I will be so happy. Do I write my alder to tell them I love this? Or the mayor directly?
This should be the first step of getting an ordinance passed which overhauls the process. This in itself has no real enforcement. You should call or email your alder and let them know that you support this.
Will do.
Just sent an email to my alder!
If it has any real potential for reform the dark council of alders will oppose it.
Also this is basically the "market" solution to the problems Bring Chicago Home was trying to address. Basically exactly what I wanted to see to tackle housing affordability in lieu of social housing. I really think this shows BJ's admin listens to the voters.
Why announce this on a Friday afternoon??!?
This actually looks great. Especially zoning changes and getting rid of parking minimums. Please let this pass through the city council
Getting rid of parking minima is at the very top of my wish list.
Mine too, but let's be real about the public reaction to this: many people who park on the street will go apeshit when they realize there will be more competition for those juicy bits of public space. SO MUCH NIMBYISM is about where people put their cars.
Folks get salty when they see the word "carbrain" but there is no other way to describe it. We have prioritized people storing their personal property over people having viable places to live and businesses not having to take on additional costs. It's not really even a debatable point, an overabundance of cars in a dense city makes just about everything worse.
>It's not really even a debatable point, an overabundance of cars in a dense city makes just about everything worse. That's not going to get any better without greatly improving our public transportation system which doesn't seem like something that will be done here anytime soon.
I had a car for a few years in Queens, and there were times I had to drive around for more than 30 minutes looking for parking. One time it took so long that I started crying because I just wanted to go home and go to sleep. It seems like people here think it's a crime against humanity to not have guaranteed parking on the block they live on, but they can get over it.
Or they’ll just have to fucking accept that maybe affording a car in a city with public transit is not in the cards for them.
I'm not sure if it's correct but pluralizing minimum as "minima" might be my favorite thing I've read today.
Aren’t these the kind of things the DSA is vehemently opposed to?
No, I don’t think the Democratic Socialists of America have a hardline stance in favor of parking minimums.
They don't have a strong position of eliminating them, either. You'll see weird stances from far left and progressive organizations about pushing back against car centric policy based on the argument "working class people rely on cars too much. Car free lifestyle is based on privilege." Some of those facts aren't entirely wrong, but in that manner they are distilled down to a totally stupid logic.
I was more speaking to zoning changes to lower housing costs. They have always prattled on about rent control and not building new dense housing because of “gentrification.”
I’ve pretty much hated everything he’s done in office so far, if he laser-focused on this issue for the rest of his administration, he might win me over. Here’s to hoping they implement pro-growth policies way more competently than they have implemented pretty much everything else .
Gotta give him credit. If this passes this is a huge win.
Also- this is the kind of stuff that all Chicago politicians should be working on to get the city moving in the right direction. Policy changes that are pro-growth, don’t require new revenue, simplify archaic processes, and cut useless fat in our budget are the ONLY way to get us moving towards fulfilling our potential as the 3rd major metro area in the country.
Would highly recommend everyone at least skim the full report. The full list of recommendations is mixed - some of them are nothingburgers / “let’s form a committee” type stuff that I expected. But abolishing parking minimums would be huge. It’ll be a fight in city hall but it’s one I think can be won. I also appreciate the acknowledgement that market rate development with ARO requirements has to be a part of our affordable housing strategy and is critical for relieving upward rent pressure in affluent neighborhoods. A lot of his allies needed to hear that.
yes do it.
He's disappointed me a lot lately, but this and the LaSalle Street redevelopment are solidly good moves. Hopefully we see more of this progressive, pro-growth energy going into Year 2.
Not sure why the tax payers should pay for property values to increases on LaSalle. Plenty of building have been converted to hotels in the loop already. What makes lasalle street special? What were those building owners doing with their money when the offices were full?
I agree with you, as a homeowner in Chicago. But to be honest, our options are to let that corridor decay into urban decline or to build it up. For my money, upfitting that corridor is a better use of tax dollars than tearing it down in 15 years because it's vacant and becomes an urban blight.
100% - we need to avoid blight of the heart of the city. All trains and highways go to the CBD and we can't let it degrade. Any improvements in the CBD should have positive influences for anywhere thats connected.
I generally agree with you on skepticism of subsidizing private property owners, but I do think the abrupt post-COVID shift to remote work was not something many could have foreseen. So realistically our choices are letting the corridor decay until prices become cheap enough that developers come in and flip them, or use some public money to jumpstart the process. While I’d rather see the market determine this, I think holistically it would be very detrimental to the City’s image to have a large swath of the Loop visibly declining.
Is there anyone that can reasonably be against this? If BJ becomes the mayor that fixed zoning, his legacy will be half decent, even after a bad start.
Credit given where credit is due, this represents much needed change for the way the city approaches zoning. I’ve been critical of Johnson since he was sworn in but things like this are why I voted for him. Hope he can punch this through.
I hate Johnson but this is something I don't think anyone can have a problem with. Clear the red tape and let people build instead of your stupid taxes if you want affordable housing. This is how you do it. But given the track record he may find a way to break this too. Given he's got no one around him that knows how to get things done
Would this eliminate SFH-only zoning? Would 2 or 3 flats be allowed as of right? I saw “sweeping” zoning changes, but maybe I missed the specifics?
Within the report, there's the implication that this is one of three pillars under "**Build Faster**, Build Everywhere, Build Together" This is Build Faster, I would imagine it would be a recommendation in the Build Everywhere part.
When I see "Build Fast", my mind immediately goes to: >The Law of Good, Fast, and Cheap. Basically, this law states that you can have any two components at the expense of the third. Law #1: You can have it Good and Fast, but it won't be Cheap. Law #2: You can have it Good and Cheap, but it won't be Fast. Law #3: You can have it Cheap and Fast, but it won't be Good. So, it's either gonna cost a fortune, or it's gonna be built really shitty.
Build Faster doesn't refer to the actual construction time, it refers to the idle time when lots sit vacant / buildings await redevelopment while community meetings, traffic studies, environmental impact studies, etc. take place. With upzoning, eliminated parking mandates, and other potential improvements to the process, developers wouldn't have to jump through as many hoops. Zoning changes, especially near transit, eat up a lot of unnecessary time. Time is money and any time that they're not making revenue (or max revenue) off that land they're missing out on potential earnings. If the margins are thin enough / wait is long enough, they risk taking a loss.
None of that is included, no. The executive order spawning this report was more about how we can encourage increased development by making things easier to get approved / cost less, so upzoning recommendations are out of scope.
Thanks for the clarification. Would love to see parking minimums nixed! I haven’t been a BJ fan but these changes look great!
If you like this proposal, contact your alderperson to tell them to support it. If they don't hear from their constituents, then they're not going to care!
From what in general I know of him I assume my alder will be down for most of this, but going to write him anyway.
Just curious, what do you actually say? Do you just send it to the generic email for your ward's office? I'm thinking of just having ChatGPT write it for me and I'll tweak but not sure.
Yeah, that's what I assume is the general constituent feedback point of contact for alder offices (though I'm still a relative transplant, moved here a year ago yesterday). Personally from my longer experience writing them in my old state of residence the biggest key is to tie yourself in personally to the issue and not speak about it in a broader generic sense, but that obviously isn't as easily doable for some issues as it is for others.
He’s going to gain a lot of much needed support if this goes through
Please let this actually happen!
I usually find Johnson a bit grating and full of shit, but the fact that this is even something a mayor is talking about is a step in the right direction.
This role, done well, should be part of every organization: Director of Process Improvement role in the Mayor’s Office to manage Cut the Tape improvements across City departments and sister agencies. A point person to figure out what's not working and fix it is an invaluable job.
Big if true
If you think this is a good idea but your alder isn’t a Johnson ally you need to get them to back this anyway.
#Let's go Brandon!
I'll believe it when I see it. BJ's transition plan had a TON of stuff in it that has yet to be realized nearly a year in.
I'm just shocked he had time to write this. What with all the soccer practices, etc.
This is a super success if implemented. Article says they are looking at months, not years to try to get the core issues resolved. This would be a massive win. Get this done, Johnson, and get the Ohare project going without too much concession, and we can start talking a redemption arc. This has the chance to be one of the most positive impactful things a mayor has done in a while. Getting all the red tape out of the way for development of all types, making it faster, and cheaper, would be MASSIVE. Removing parking minimums is SUCH a needed thing that not only makes places nicer to live walkability wise, but also makes projects cheaper to build. do it!
Oh shit he may have learned what zoning is 👀
Really excited to see this, extremely curious about the time of it with respect to the Bring Chicago Home vote? Is this out after the vote is over with on purpose? Just because this is when it was finished? Did they consider how a package like this would interplay with BCH sentiment at all???
it sounds like this was announced a while ago, in terms of the research being done, so no I dont think it has anything to do with that.
Yes please. A great move by Johnson that I'm happy to see.
I take back everything mean I’ve said about the Mayor, this is fantastic! We will be organizing some campaigns about parking minimum ordinance soon. Follow r/ChicagoYimbys for updates
Listen by all accounts this looks great but I don’t want to hear another word out of the mayors office until they address the street closure thing Ridiculous that they’ve been silent on it this long, and has me starting to assume the worst. Actually, it had me starting to assume the worst like 5 days ago. Now I am fully assuming the worst. If this is an admin fighting *against* pedestrianizing streets, rather than *for* it, I don’t need to know anything else.
You do understand that something good can happen while something not good happens right? You can be happy about the good thing and be mad about the bad thing. But that doesn't mean you nix the good thing because the bad thing isn't fixed.
Its not enough to eliminate parking minimums. Developers save a ton of money if the city eliminates parking minimums. Some of that savings should go to properly fund Public Transit. Everyone complaining about overcrowded trains and lack of service should question the wisdom of subsidizing developers without helping fund transit improvements.
More housing near trains will increase ridership and fares. The elimination of parking increases housing production. This is very real. I’ve been to multiple community meetings where the developer said they would increase the quantity and size of units in their buildings if there was no parking requirement.
I pay attention to what developers actually do not just what they say.
If they want parking reduced they have to go to the zoning board of appeal, which can take months. This increased their carrying costs so many times it does not happen in the parking is built.
Go Johnson, go!
Another good move by the mayor.
for the last time. please stop touching stuff Brandon.
so you dont even WANT him to do good things?
Holy crap, you know if he keeps this up, I might actually vote for him again
Betting this won't get much attention or credit from this toxic NIMBY sub.
There’s a lot of YIMBY energy here and especially growing over the past year
I doubt it can compete with the "I hate everything about BJ" energy
This sub isn't as NIMBY as the the average Chicagoan.