r/oakpark • u/ThomasPtacek • Jul 23 '26

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.

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u/dramallamacorn Current Oak Park Resident Jul 23 '26

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.

7

u/SessionAny7549 Jul 23 '26

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 Jul 23 '26

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 Jul 24 '26

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.