In about-face, Lightfoot gets behind watered-down plan to stop gentrification along the 606 trail

Mayor Lori Lightfoot Tuesday did an abrupt about-face and embraced a watered-down plan to freeze development along the wildly-popular 606 trail to prevent longtime residents from being priced out.

Instead of freezing new construction for 14 months, the revised ordinance will last for six months and apply only to demolition permits.

The freeze will not impact “any building on a lot on which the applicant intends to build affordable housing.” Nor will it apply to buildings that need to be torn down to “remedy conditions imminently dangerous to life, health or property” as determined by the city’s Buildings Department.

The area impacted by the demolition freeze has also shrunk. The shorter and more narrow area is now bounded by Kostner, California, Hirsch and Armitage. The 32^nd Ward has been completely excluded at the behest of its Ald. Scott Waguespack, who is firmly convinced the whole idea is illegal.

Lightfoot said the same thing just four days ago.

She argued then that aldermen “need to use a surgical knife and not a club” to combat the gentrification problem and the way they proposed to go about it would “invite unnecessary litigation.”

Why did the mayor change her mind — again — when it appeared that a recalcitrant City Council may have been on the verge of defying her?

“After discussions with the local aldermen, the updated ordinance presented at today’s committee hearing provides a legally defensible, but a temporary path to allow for a more comprehensive means to address affordable housing preservation along the 606 trail,” Lightfoot spokesperson Lauren Huffman wrote in an email.

“Importantly, this latest version includes a shorter time frame for a moratorium on demolitions only and narrower geography, while preventing a unilateral ban on zoning approvals in order to preserve the rights of existing property owners in the area.”

The City Council’s Housing Committee held a hearing on the watered-down ordinance Tuesday and will meet again Wednesday to pass it. That sets the stage for final approval by the full Council on the same day.

Like the old version, the revised ordinance is co-sponsored by local Aldermen Daniel LaSpata (1^st), Roberto Maldonado (26^th) and Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35^th).

But Maldonado is not a happy camper.

“The most important thing in my ward is to put a moratorium on issuing permits for new construction. That, the administration said resoundingly they were not going to support,” Maldonado said.

“We had to work long, long hours to come with a very imperfect solution, which is just a moratorium on demolitions…I hope that, in the next six months, we still have time enough to come up with a long-term solution so we can address the issuance of new construction permits as well…I hope it’s not too late for the 26^th Ward.”

Maldonado was asked why a step as dramatic as freezing new construction permits was needed along the 606 trail.

“In the next six months, I could see dozens upon dozens of new construction [projects] popping up in my ward — high-priced market rate — at the expense of people who have lived there so long because they have some sort of zoning right,” Maldonado said.

“If they have the zoning to build a four-flat and they can rent it for $2,800 a month, guess what? The average working family in my ward — they’re not gonna be able to afford $2,800-a-month….I have seen gentrification every single day in my ward…..Young people, millennials, their parents raised them there. And now, the kids...cannot even afford to live in the same community [where] they were raised. That is wrong.”

Ramirez-Rosa wasn’t angry. He called the revised ordinance a “good first step towards finding a long-term solution.” He’s convinced it’s on solid legal ground.

But what about Lightfoot’s about-face? Did she get onboard the legislative train before it left the station without her?

“Those would be questions for Mayor Lori Lightfoot. I would only say that, behind-the-scenes, it always seemed like things were on the tracks and heading in the right direction” toward a compromise, Ramirez-Rosa said.