We almost stopped Albion (but didn't)--Now what?

Greetings to all of you who signed the petition against Albion: This is a long message, so here’s the “executive summary.” • We failed to stop the project, but we came close and we helped make it a little less destructive. • The Village failed to negotiate a fair monetary deal with the developer, but there may still be a chance to improve that. • The undemocratic process that produced this result is still in place and must be changed. A huge $18 million Madison Street project is now being put into motion the same way. • The next Trustee election is April 2019. With a few more reformers on the Board, we could change business-as-usual in our Village. • Meanwhile, we need to keep our eyes open and keep up pressure on the Board to do the right thing in the right way. As many of you know by now, we did not succeed in stopping the Albion project. We came very close, though: We prevailed at the Plan Commission, but the Village trustees ignored the Commission’s judgment and approved the project anyway on October 2. In the end, two of the three new trustees, both of whom campaigned on their opposition to the Albion plan, changed their position and voted for it. Those were Dan Moroney and Deno Andrews. Simone Boutet was the sole trustee to vote to stop the project. If Moroney and Andrews had not flipped, the project would have been stopped. Although this project is still an awful mistake, it is not quite as awful as it would have been without the opposition it received. At the last minute, Andrews and Moroney sketched out a change in the design to reduce the shadows on Austin Gardens by cutting some notches into the part of the building facing the park, so it now rises to 19 stories in stages on the north side, instead of straight up. (Yes, that’s 19 stories now, rather than 18—a technicality in how heights are calculated allowed them to do that.) None of the other problems with this project were addressed, and the new design actually has less parking for the same number of units. Andrews and Moroney said they would have voted against the proposal before the modification, but were satisfied with the modified plan. Perhaps from now on we should refer to this as the Andrews-Moroney building. Several trustees repeated the claim that it was this gigantic tower or nothing for this site, despite all evidence to the contrary. The fact that almost none of the members of the Plan Commission accepted that claim seemed to have no impact on the trustees. Nor did the trustees (except Boutet) feel any obligation to heed the 4,000 people who signed petitions in opposition. In fact, several seemed proud of their ability to ignore us. Unless some party launches legal challenges to the project, it will now proceed. The one remaining issue we can pursue with the trustees and the Village Manager is the lousy monetary deal they negotiated with Albion. Albion is proposing a similar project in Evanston (30% larger than here) for which it is prepared to offer that city $3 million in compensation, mainly for creating affordable housing. The total offer from Albion to Oak Park is $0.44 million—85% less. I have written to the trustees to urge them to pursue a better deal. What remains is the undemocratic process by which projects like these are approved, with no overall plan, with the Village President (“mayor”) controlling all the decision-making bodies and all staff positions, with severely restricted public input. The mayor controls appointments to the Economic Development Corporation, the Plan Commission, the Zoning Board, the Village Planner position, and the misleadingly named “Development Customer Services Director,” who actually creates the ordinances to present to the board of trustees. The Economic Development Corporation pretends to be a private corporation, and thus not subject to any of the state’s government sunshine laws. It adheres to no requirement for public input, and operates almost entirely without any. But the mayor and two trustees serve on that board and the EDC controls which plans are put up for approval. They typically provide only one option for consideration—a well-established bad way to make decisions, but one that gives them almost total control over what gets built in our Village. When the Albion decision went to the trustees, the Village attorney told trustees not to talk to citizens, leaving us with a total of 9 minutes to address the board at the October 2 meeting. But then, they weren’t listening anyway (for example, when we pointed to the $3 million Albion payment to Evanston). Opponents were able to address the Plan Commission (with about 25% as much “airtime” as was given to the developers) and we had an impact. But, if the trustees are happy to ignore the deliberations of the Plan Commission, then talking to the Plan Commission just amounts to letting off steam. At the Oct. 2 meeting, Deno Andrews said he hoped he could win back the trust of the people who voted for him to stop Albion. Maybe yes, maybe no. One way he, and all the trustees, can try to regain our trust is to institute fair, open, and democratic processes for major decisions. Coming up next is the massive $18 million project to reshape Madison Street, included in the Village’s Capital Improvement Plan, which was approved by a 4-3 vote of trustees (on Oct. 16). Will this be the same thing all over again? Let’s keep all this in mind when the April 2019 trustee election approaches. We have a chance to elect several more reform-minded trustees to back up Simone Boutet and possibly to shore up the resolve of Dan Moroney and Deno Andrews to be the reformers they promised to be. If so, we can work on lasting, long-term changes for the better. Know that we did have some impact, and came very close to having a major impact. We must keep pressure on the Village government to do the right thing the next time and the time after that… Thank you again for your support, Josh Klayman Oak Park Coalition for Appropriate Development