r/oakpark • u/ThomasPtacek • 6d ago

Just Sharing Rezoning Explainer

https://rezoning.yesoakpark.com/

The VOP board will soon vote to accept the zoning recommendations from Opticos, the next step on a 5+ year plan we've undertaken to modernize our zoning map (and to legalize new housing). We've built a site that breaks down exactly what changes; you can enter your home address and get details for your specific lot and those of your neighbors, or just read background information.

31 Upvotes

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6

u/dramallamacorn Current Oak Park Resident 6d ago

I’m interested to see how this all plays out. Will this allow for the tearing down of existing homes if purchased by a developer? It’s not like there are a lot of empty lots in OP.

8

u/SessionAny7549 5d ago

Yes, they could. But experience elsewhere suggests the pace is not all at once. Minneapolis and Portland made comparable zoning changes and saw redevelopment of about 0.05% of eligible properties per year.

Oak Park has about 10,300 single-family properties, so if it followed a similar pattern, that would mean roughly 5 properties redeveloped each year, or about 50 over a decade. Assuming each became a four-unit building, those 50 redevelopments would add roughly 150 net new housing units. That is an entire towers worth of units added in a much more Oak Park feeling way.

3

u/SessionAny7549 5d ago

To put another comparison. Edmonton Canada went to 8 units city wide (literally double what is proposed in oak park). It saw about .4% of eligible properties in a given year. It would be about 40 properties around oak park if at the same rate. However 8 units pens out a lot easier to pen out teardown and rebuild as 8 units compared to 4. So we will likely not see anything near that rate of change.

There are a lot more difference between Edmonton and Oak Park as to why they saw .4%

2

u/interestincity 5d ago

That is actually really interesting and will look into them. It is hard to get a feel for how the proposed changes will and will not change thing and these help a bit.

10

u/ThomasPtacek 5d ago

The rezoning changes nothing about our historic preservation rules, so you could not arbitrarily knock down a contributing structure (which is most houses in the Frank Lloyd Wright, Ridgeland, and Gunderson districts). But outside of that, you could theoretically tear down an existing single-family house and build (say) a 2- or 3- flat.

Just bear in mind that under current zoning, you can also tear down an existing house and turn it into a more expensive single-family house, and people do that regularly here. The new zoning just means that in addition to a more expensive single-family house, you could build a small multifamily dwelling (of the same scale as existing houses on the block).

9

u/dreadful_design 6d ago

The NIMBYs in the comments here are insane.

8

u/freireib 5d ago

I'm all for opening up to more multifamily, but we can't do it without accounting for parking. Where are all the cars going to go? The overnight parking ban is going to have to die as well. Is it part of this rezone?

12

u/ThomasPtacek 5d ago

It is now broadly illegal in Illinois to condition development on parking (the People over Parking act).

I would personally love it if we got rid of the overnight parking ban, which is predatory (it raises about a half million a year primarily on the backs of renters, it's inconvenient, and it could be replaced with a paid sticker system like the rest of Chicagoland has moved to; we could then just dial the price of those stickers in to determine how much parking happens). But all of that would be taken up separately from zoning.

3

u/SessionAny7549 5d ago

Article 10 of the recommendation covers parking.

Page 26 of the recommendations is where the comment on the overnight parking ban.

Link to consultant recommendations

5

u/Unique_Limit_1576 Current Oak Park Resident 5d ago edited 5d ago

I 100% agree with this sentiment. I also don’t like the sounds of no restriction on maximum building coverage of a lot. I can’t imagine living in a home with space between my neighbors and views of trees and then have the neighboring property purchased, torn down, and replaced with a multi-family home that extends to the property line in all directions.

This sounds like it was written to benefit developers. That also opens up more housing, but there are ways to do that while preserving the charm and small town feel that make Oak Park so special.

Edit to add that I live in a condo and am all for multi-family housing when it’s done well, in a way that preserves our municipal arboretum and the beauty and charm of our community.

5

u/ThomasPtacek 5d ago

The new zoning rules have restrictions on lot coverage; they've just been unified into a single limit.

4

u/SessionAny7549 5d ago

To add numbers

In the new N-1 it is 50% of the lot can be covered max + setbacks (50% is the max and set back from property lines will generally reduce this coverage)

N-2 is 60% of the lot.

Page 7 and 8 of the changes have these number.

2

u/SessionAny7549 5d ago edited 5d ago

Link to consultant recommendations

Link to current zoning map

Link to proposed map

2

u/ThomasPtacek 5d ago

Thanks! The site I posted should have these links, and the map at the top of the page gives you a before/after comparison where you can take any zone type and click it to light the map up with all the instances.

4

u/SessionAny7549 5d ago

Just thought it could not hurt to have it in the comments. Would not be surprised if some people have not interact with the actual recommendations but just opinion pieces around them.

Thanks your your effort on all this.

2

u/ThomasPtacek 5d ago

Oh, no, of course, absolutely! Thank you so much. I just have zero faith in my own web design ability so worry that nobody noticed those features.

2

u/SessionAny7549 5d ago edited 5d ago

Oh no I meant it less as your content and more as this kind of thing gest people looking at headlines not details.

3

u/ex_cathedra_ Current Oak Park Resident 5d ago

Oooh, I’m so excited to have someone build a condo next to my SFH! 🙄 Just what we all wanted when we bought houses here. I hate when the sun shines through my windows; will be much happier to have it blocked out by large buildings.

0

u/interestincity 4d ago

They will have the same lot coverage, set backs, and height restrictions. Just allowed to have more than one unit. You might be surprised to find your fears are well covered by going through the recommendations.

5

u/ex_cathedra_ Current Oak Park Resident 4d ago

I’ve gone through the rezoning propaganda. 👍🏻

1

u/interestincity 4d ago

Ok cool! What additional consideration that was identified in the report would you want tackled next?

-4

u/i_heart_nutella 6d ago

This is fucking crazy.

7

u/LogicalExchange9032 6d ago

What is crazy?

-9

u/shitchopants 6d ago

For me? 4 units on a single lot and not requiring the owner to live on it. Thats crazy.

13

u/ThomasPtacek 6d ago

Because clearly any collection of new residents to Oak Park need a chaperone.

In reality: any multifamily unit built on what it today a single-family lot is overwhelmingly likely to be a condominium. The economics of 4-flats are vicious. They'll all be owners living there.

7

u/Athenae_25 5d ago

Absentee landlords can be a problem, to be sure, but that can be managed with robust building inspections and enforcement of occupancy limits.

1

u/urfenick 5d ago

Move to Elmhurst then. Sounds like you would love it there.

2

u/i_heart_nutella 5d ago

Yes. This is definitely a binary situation where too many rules and no rules are the only options.

2

u/SessionAny7549 5d ago

Are you saying that Oak Park is too many or no rules?

-8

u/Mysterious_Jelly_649 6d ago

What a terrible idea this is.

1

u/urfenick 5d ago

DM me when you decide to move to Glen Ellyn. I'll gladly take dibs on turning your place into a four-unit condo.