Hyde Park Urbanist

53rd Street Visioning Workshop-- The Walk

On Saturday, May 3rd, about a hundred Hyde Parkers gathered at Kenwood Academy for the second in a series of workshops Irene Sherr is organizing to look at the 53rd Street retail district.  After some chatting to neighbors over coffee, we listened while a panel of 8 experts introduced themselves.  Then we divided up into self-selected groups with a particular interest and a pair of experts to ask questions of.  A walking tour of the retail district followed and our appointed task was to take pictures and look for opportunities for improvement.  I put a 29-photo album here with comments concerning what I saw along the walk.

At 53rd and Lake Park, a Hyde Parker stopped me and asked what our group was doing.  He stated that he was having a hard time figuring it out because we looked so diverse.  His first guess had been that we were all in a drug treatment program.

Indian Village

One of the Herald's front page stories this week concerns a proposal to construct a high-rise on what's now a parking lot at 4941 S. East End.  The parking lot is currently owned by several residents of the Indian Village high-rise.  Here's what C-Pop wrote in the comments of a related Hyde Park Progress article:

I love the subheading from this week's Herald: "Indian Village parking lot owners object to high-rise proposal."

"Parking lot owners."

Now there's a marginalized, oppressed minority speaking out against rampant development and the trampling of property values.

Where is their Cesar Chavez, their Victor Hugo, their Martin Luther King? Who will speak for the people (and their parking lot??

Well, I'll speak out for the rights of these parking lot owners.  And I hope everyone else will, too.  But not because I oppose a high-rise being built on this parking lot.  Far from it.  It would be completely in keeping with Urbanist values for that high-rise to be built.  However, there are some things more important than Urbanist values.  Let's consider the facts of the case, so far undisputed by HPP.  (Since Kate Hawley wrote the article, I think we can assume that the Herald got the fundamentals correct.)

The parking lot spaces are held by condo owners at Indian Village.  The developer will have to purchase air rights from those parking space owners to build the high rise.  Alderman Preckwinkle has done the right thing by putting off the table any thoughts of the city mis-using it eminent domain powers to hand these rights to the developer.  It doesn't really matter what the condo/space owners at Indian Village find unpalatable about this development plan-- whether they oppose it because the high rise will block their views or because they prefer to let their cars breathe in the open air or because they think C-Pop is arrogant and they just want to thwart his will.

You see, C-Pop, this isn't a communist country.  We have this thing called private property rights and, if a developer wants to build there, s/he's going to have purchase that land from its owners.  Urbanism is important to me, but private property is even more important and that's a value I'm willing to fight for.

Ungar Answers

About seventy locals turned out tonight for a forum hosted by the Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference featuring Eli Ungar and Peter Cassel of Mac Properties/Antheus Capital.  Peter gave a short presentation and Eli answered questions for over an hour.   The tone was respectful, with HPKCC President George Rumsey commenting that he thought the audience had been too easy on Eli.

Eli divulged that he was presently in talks to acquire another building, although he feels it's extremely unlikely that Mac will buy buildings anywhere close to the pace of the last year or so.  When I suggested that last year's purchases had led to some bumps in the road concerning management of Mac's properties, he countered that it was worse than that, that Mac had bungled the job.  However, he and Peter asserted that they're down to about 3 days worth of work orders now and that some 130 people work for Mac in Hyde Park.

Concerns were voiced about rent increases at buildings Mac has rehabbed, the unusual exterior of the Solstice on the Park project and renovations at other buildings.  I'm personally concerned about the change from security deposits to charging a non-refundable move-in fee.  While I understand that security deposits present quite a few problems for landlords, I don't like that this hits students harder since they tend to occupy a unit for only a year or so and therefore can't spread this expense over a decent period of time.  And it seems a little unfair to pay this up-front fee and then be hit with significant rent increases twelve months later.

Eli's one of the best public speakers I've ever seen anywhere, especially in the Hyde Park context.  He has an amazing ability to boil complicated issues down to some core concepts, ticking off multiple-part answers to long & difficult questions.  He did, however, commit one horrendous gaffe tonight, claiming that such & such was a "mixed sword" when he meant "mixed blessing" & "double-edged sword".  He'd done such a good job of charming the audience with his facts & logic that not even one Hyde Parker bothered to correct him.  Not until now, at least.

Congestion Pricing

Someone showed me a broadcast e-mail from the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce concerning possible congestion pricing policies.  There are a few minor (IMO), though legitimate, concerns raised.  I'm still unsure how private garages could be included in this, for instance, but, aside from that, the Chamber is missing an important point here: the policies are intended to make it easier for more people to travel downtown. 

The reality is that private automobiles inside the Loop during the rush hours benefit a very few people while getting in the way of the vast, vast majority who use transit.  Buses full of passengers and crowds of pedestrians have to take turns with solo drivers.  How is that fair?  There's no evidence AFAIK that congestion pricing has harmed business in either London or Singapore. 

We should however keep in mind that many executives and business owners drive to and park in the Loop, while their employees take transit.  Which of those groups-- the executives or the workers-- are likely to influence Chamber policies more?  Right.  Congestion pricing may negatively impact wealthy people with strong political representation while having a neutral or even positive impact on their businesses.  I'd argue that a similar situation exists regarding federal health insurance policies, but that's an issue for a different blog.  Of course, I'd be perfectly willing to concede that fear of change may be a larger factor for business obstinacy.  Business executives find it easy enough to tell their employees that change is good, but when the shoe is on the other foot.... 

Happy May Day, by the way!

The Chicagoland Chamber's broadcast e-mail ends with an assumption I especially want to take issue with:  "At the end of the day, 'congestion pricing' is a tax by a different name – and what will these new revenues be used for?"

No, congestion pricing is a fee, not a tax.  A tax is a payment you make to the government that has little or no direct relationship to goods you receive from the government.  A fee is a payment the government requires for a specific good that you choose to receive, like entering a national park or taking your boat over a lock or driving over a toll road.  The government owns the good or service and it's simply conducting itself like a business to charge the people using that good or service a fee in exchange.

The City of Chicago owns the streets in the Loop (mostly) and the city owns the street parking and the loading zones.  The city is within its rights to charge whatever the market can bear for those goods, with the burden of the fees falling upon those who use the goods.  What's happening now-- and let's take street parking as the example-- is that the city has decided to charge too little for those finite resources and instead to let people use them first-come, first-serve.  What happens when a finite resource is underpriced?  A shortage develops due to market distortion.  That's why you can't find any on-street parking unless you get incredibly lucky.  All the city is proposing is to charge a rational price for scarce goods so that those who are willing to pay the most for those goods can do so without standing in line behind people who value those goods less.

Granted, I don't understand how private garages will be folded into this scheme; maybe they won't.  But I don't feel the revenue has to be tied to a specific municipal function.  If this scheme leads to lower property taxes-- or puts off a property tax increase-- that's fine.  The important thing is for the market to function.

CTA Gets Federal Grant to Ease Traffic Congestion

New York City squandered a $354M federal grant to begin charging congestion pricing to enter Manhattan and the Big Apple's stupidity is our gain.  $153M of that will go to the CTA to test out more bus lanes (possibly on Lake Shore Drive), install signal priority technology for buses (bus riders would get longer green lights at traffic lights) and several other miscellaneous programs.  The Tribune has more here.  I don't see anything at the CTA website yet, but will add more when I know more.

Additional media reports on this subject: Sun-Times, CTA press release, Crain's and the blog CTA Tattler-- which I check on a daily basis.   

Housing Plus Transit Affordability Index

Kate Hawley's been doing some very good work at the Hyde Park Herald and in Wednesday's paper there'll be a fine article on a webtool called the Housing Plus Transportation Affordability Index.  This is another excellent product from the Center for Neighborhood Technologies, who also brought I-Go Car Sharing to Chicago.  The webtool examines the level of transit services in various neighborhoods and makes the case that transit-rich neighborhoods allow residents to live more cheaply because they don't have to have a car to go everywhere.  This very simple & compelling idea undergirds the Location Efficient Mortgage (LEM).  The LEM is a pilot program in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago that allows mortgage lenders to qualify more people for housing loans in high transit areas, with the idea again being that people can save money on automobiles and therefore afford higher mortgages. 

Pretty cool stuff, eh?

Hawley quotes me in the Herald article talking about the Gray Line.  My suggestion differs somewhat from Michael Payne's in that I'm going for a more limited start-up.

We Get Letter Dep't: Mac Properties

Faith writes:

I have lived in Hyde Park off and on for more than 30 years. Last April or May when Mac Properties bought the building I was renting along with 42 others, I thought nothing of it.  Then I had to deal with their lack of communicating, even where to pay the rent.

When I read a few articles on-line about the man who owns or operates Mac Properties, I got concerned.  He's from New Jersey, not Chicago.

In the building where I live, everyone has to vacate by this summer. Mac has closed down at least 4 buildings on Greenwood alone.  So, if you wanted to stay in Hyde Park, you cannot because they are closing all these buildings down AT THE SAME TIME to make them luxury apartments-- at least that is what I heard my building will be.

If this is the case, Hyde Park will become a place where no one knows your name. No one will care if the trees are uprooted or someone is changing the physical landscape of the neighborhood because it will be cold and clinical and the habitat of folks who do not know the culture of Hyde Park.

So I am asking why you haven't done a story on this phenomena, this company taking over Hyde Park?

Well, this morning I called up Peter Cassell, who's just signed on as Mac's liaison to the neighborhood.  He assured me that Mac has more apartments currently available than there are tenants displaced.  That doesn't guarantee, of course, that there will be plenty of apartments in your price range.

Peter also wanted to get across that Mac has the organization in place to manage its buildings, the financial wherewithal to improve their acquisitions and a plan of succession to deal with what we all assume to be a given-- that Eli Ungar is mortal.  Ungar has committed to appearing at an HPKCC forum devoted to Mac Properties on Tuesday, May 6, at 7pm at the Hyde Park Neighborhood Club.  At the last Ungar forum, he promised to stay until every question was answered, so this will be a great chance to grill him.

I've been very impressed by Ungar myself.  His Solstice on the Park project is amazing and he met just about every possible objection head on; the alderman's meeting to consider the development was a love-fest.

Sure, I also have concerns.  Mac has very quickly taken on a large share of the rental market in our neighborhood.  And those first large acquisitions were carried out clumsily.  At buildings like the Del Prado, will the newly renovated units be more expensive?  Of course.

But, as Cassell noted in our conversation, "affordable housing through unsafe buildings" is a bad plan.  He asserted that many apartments Mac has acquired were uninhabitable, vacant due to substandard conditions.  Given that so many rental units have been converted to condos here-- something Mac Properties has never done-- the acquisitions and renovations should mitigate the conversions somewhat and leave us with more rental units than we otherwise would have.

It's certainly possible that this new 800-pound apartments gorilla could end up harming Hyde Park in the future and I'm concerned that folks like Faith will probably find fewer and fewer affordable apartments.  But I'm not willing to neglect buildings just to keep them affordable.  I'm of a mind to congratulate Ungar on his efforts and otherwise wait to see what happens.

53rd St. Vision Workshop Part 2

Irene sent around a notice that a second workshop will be held Saturday, May 3rd, starting at Kenwood Academy at 5015 S. Blackstone.  For this event, you are urged to bring a camera & comfortable shoes because a walking tour will be part of the festivities.  Information about the first 53rd Street Vision Workshop can be found here.

Reviews of the first workshop were generally positive.  An important idea the presenters tried to get across was that increased density would be a very good thing.  I agree.  More density means less suburban sprawl means fewer greenhouse gas emissions.  More density in Hyde Park would tend to increase transit over time. 

Even though I support more density, I still feel it's being oversold as a way to increase retail here.  It will, but very slowly because increasing density will be a slow process.  Building Solstice and converting the Shoreland to condos are helpful, but we're still talking small percentage increases in population.

The quickest way to gain retail & services for Hyde Park is by making it more convenient and attractive for folks from other neighborhoods to shop here.  That means we need to look for ways to make HP more of a leisure destination.  And we need to make transportation more convenient.  Sure, a parking garage at 53rd Street would help, but transit improvements like the Gray Line promise more shoppers more cheaply.

Ragging on Volunteers

During the early eighties, the City of Chicago should have invested every spare dollar in Intel stock.  In 1993, one of you supposedly intelligent Hyde Parkers should have registered the pizza.com domain name, so that you could have sold it in 2006 for $2.6 million.  In the 1999 Amateur Draft, the White Sox should have used their 12th round pick on Albert Pujols.  That's some 25 years of Chicago failures, right?

Oh, I know what you're probably thinking.  I bet you're wondering why I kept this great advice to myself instead of acting on it at the appropriate time-- in 1983 or 1993 or 1999.  You probably figure that hindsight's 20-20 and any yoyo can look back now and know these things.  And you might point out that the city has still done very well and most Hyde Parkers are reasonably comfortable and the White Sox won a World Championship, so where do I get off using a word like "failure" to describe something that's successful but somewhat shy of perfect?

Well, C-Pop over Hyde Park Progress avoids such introspection when criticizing the HPKCC Harper Court survey.  He published a Rossi "satire"-- and I use that word loosely-- just before the survey was shown publicly and then a few days later on February 23rd he himself provided a link to the survey.  In neither article-- nor in either's comments section-- did he critique the survey methodology.  Nor has he ever volunteered to help HPKCC put together a survey despite numerous accusations that the Conference and other neighborhood organizations are unrepresentative of the community.  Yet now that 1697 responses have been generated and the results have been tabulated and published, he's finally ready to critique the survey methodologies employed by the volunteers who put it together.  Great timing, C-Pop!

For what it's worth, I agree that the survey would have been better if respondents had been asked to rank relative preferences.  But that imperfection in no way invalidates the results or the work these volunteers put into this.  The survey was never meant to be the last word on Harper Court, but rather to help understand the desires of the community  in combination with other evidence.

For instance, on the simple question of whether Hyde Parkers would prefer more restaurants or more clothing stores, the survey suggests that food is more important.  If my own observations differed sharply from that, then I'd wonder if I was missing something important.  In fact, I don't believe we Hyde Parkers tend to spend much money on clothes.  Food & drink is another matter.   Besides, the potential shoppers for the new development will be a particularly diverse group.  People are more adventurous with food than clothes-- we might try an Ethiopian restaurant, but it's unlikely that a sizable number of us will be buying Ethiopian-style clothes.  Food & drink has a better chance of drawing us together.

Since C-Pop managed to use photos from Girls Gone Wild parties in his post, I thought I'd provide equal time.  Please enjoy this photo of George Rumsey shirtless, taken a couple years before he foolishly volunteered to become president of HPKCC.

Ald. Hairston Okays #171 Bus Stop

In Hutch Commons of the Reynolds Club tonight, Alderman Leslie Hairston of the 5th Ward presided over a thirty-minute meeting about the bus stop at 57th & University.  A couple dozen students, a handful of other residents and a few officials-- University, CTA and aldermanic staff-- made up a suitably non-contentious audience.  Several spoke in favor of keeping the bus stop and no one spoke against it, so at the end Ald. Hairston announced that she was satisfied and would approve it.

There!  That wasn't so hard, now was it?