By Steve Rhodes
“Neighbors call it ‘the French Embassy,'” the Tribune reported in the opening to its groundbreaking series on the scam of neighborhood development.
“The new, 8,200-square-foot mansion is by far the biggest house on the 1800 block of North Wood Street, leaving Fred Ehle’s four-bedroom home next door in its shadow.
“‘I don’t mind gentrification and development – I live in Bucktown – but it has gone out of control,’ Ehle said. ‘It’s crazy. It’s so obviously different than what the neighborhood was and still is.’
“Zoning rules had prohibited such a behemoth from going up on the block. But that was before the developer got a break from then-Ald. Ted Matlak (32nd). Two weeks after the developer applied for a lucrative ‘upzoning’ so he could build a much bigger house, one of the developer’s companies gave the alderman a $2,000 campaign contribution.
“The real zoning code in Chicago is unwritten, but developers know it well: Changes in zoning go hand in hand with contributions to aldermanic campaigns.”
This may have something of a Duh Factor to it, but there is something invaluable to meticulously documenting what we think we already know and letting the story tell itself in a way that can leave rational readers nothing but outraged. I have other problems with the project that have everything to do with the Tribune’s general approach to news and nothing to do with the amazing work done by individual reporters and editors, but we’ll get to that later. For now, let’s take a look at the paper’s findings.
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“In an unprecedented investigation of city development, the Tribune examined 5,700 zoning changes approved by the City Council over the last decade and recorded on sheets of paper clipped into binders in a City Hall office. The newspaper converted the paper records into an electronic database to perform an analysis of development beyond the scope of anything previously possible, even for city planners.
“The investigation found that Chicago is a city where a building boom greased by millions of dollars in political donations to aldermen has remade the face of neighborhoods, changing the feel of the streets where people live and work.
“It’s a city where aldermen have become dependent on the political contributions they rake in from developers, while routinely ignoring city planners who oppose out-of-scale development.
“It’s a city where the council rubber stamps aldermen’s wishes – rejecting just 15 requested zoning changes in a decade – and where almost half the zoning changes were concentrated in 10 of the city’s 50 wards that are exploding with growth.
“And it’s a city where advisory groups that review zoning proposals are sometimes stacked with developers and real estate agents who will profit from the projects.”
This is the largely untold story of how Chicago’s neighborhoods have changed under the Daley Administration – to the benefit of wealthy developers and their aldermen lackeys, and to the detriment of longtime residents, the working- and middle-classes, and good taste.
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“Anyone driving around town has seen how the face of Chicago has been transformed: Three- and four-story condo buildings dwarf century-old workman’s cottages on quiet side streets. Mini-mansions cover entire lots, their facades sticking out like crooked teeth in an otherwise uniform line of homes. Blocks of condos rise on Fullerton, Belmont, Damen and Harlem Avenues, overlooking arteries choked by traffic gridlock,” the Tribune notes. “Lot by lot, each of these changes has received an alderman’s blessing.”
Development – and gentrification – is not natural, inevitable, or unstoppable. It is spurred, managed, incentivized, and perpetrated.
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“The result is a patchwork approach to development, where the fate of any zoning change is decided long before it is ever discussed publicly by the council’s Zoning Committee
“The decisions made in ward offices and rubber stamped in City Hall are driving the transformation of Chicago, making neighborhoods unrecognizable to people who have tended their homes and yards there for decades.”
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Here’s how it works.
“For almost 60 years, Walter Sopala’s family has owned a two-story home in the 2900 block of Sacramento Avenue. Until recently, only new single-family homes and two-flats were allowed on this block in the Logan Square neighborhood.
“That changed after a developer started eyeing the properties on the Sopalas’ block.
“On July 26, 2006, Ald. Rey Colon (35th) introduced an ordinance to change the zoning on a property adjacent to the Sopalas’. The next day, developer Cornel Moldoveanu of South Barrington donated $250 to ‘Neighbors for Rey Colon.’
“Despite objections from city planning staff, the upzoning was later approved by the council, allowing the developer to erect a building 8 feet taller and with 33 percent more living space than zoning rules permitted for the rest of the block.
“The new condo now towers above the Sopalas’ lot, casting shadows over the yard where the retired couple had grown tomatoes and green peppers.
“But that’s not the only lot on the block that the developer had in his sights.
“At the developer’s request, Colon also proposed upzoning the lot on the other side of the Sopalas’ home. Two months later, Moldoveanu made another $250 contribution to Colon’s fund. Then, two days after the council approved the change, the builder made another $300 donation to Colon.”
The Sopalas, like so many others, are no longer welcome in Chicago.
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“Colon said the donations had nothing to do with his decision and that he deferred to an advisory group whose members he appointed to review development proposals. ‘I don’t care whether there are condos there or not,’ Colon said. ‘I just went with what my community group told me.'”
But as the Tribune goes on to show, community groups are a scam too.
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“Although she’s no city planner, Alice Sopala poses the same question planners ask. ‘Why bother zoning an area if you will totally disregard it whenever the alderman says it’s OK?’ she said.”
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Is Chicago different than any other city? Emphatically yes.
“Chicago’s City Hall is far more permissive toward developers than are New York, Boston, San Francisco and other major cities, said Brent Ryan, an urban planning expert who recently moved to Harvard University from the University of Illinois-Chicago. Unlike in those cities, he said, individual decision-making by aldermen takes the place of planning.
“‘Zoning in Chicago is driven by real estate developers,’ said Ryan, a former New York city planner. ‘There really isn’t any plan in Chicago. You have very few neighborhoods that are safe from overdevelopment . . . If you tried to tear down an old wood house in Boston and replace it with a five-story condo, they would act like you’re kidnapping their children.”
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“In the 1st Ward, the fast-developing sections of Bucktown and Wicker Park are typical of Chicago’s hot neighborhoods. Displayed in front of homes on many blocks are flags of Mexico and Puerto Rico as well as Ohio State University and other Big 10 schools.
“The real estate hotbed also has been a gold mine for Manuel Flores, the ward’s alderman who dreams of moving up to Congress. In his rookie term on the council from 2003 to 2007, Flores approved more upzoning legislation than any other alderman except Matlak, the Tribune’s analysis found.
“State and federal campaign-finance records show that the developers and zoning lawyers involved in many of the projects in Flores’ ward have helped fill his campaign funds.
“Almost $370,000 of the roughly $1.2 million raised by Flores during his first council term came from developers and other real estate interests, according to an internal Flores campaign analysis obtained by the Tribune.
“Many of the same donors who supported Flores’ aldermanic fundraising again came through last year when he formed a congressional campaign committee, which also relied on developers for more than one-fourth of its donations. When incumbent U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) changed his mind and announced he would seek another term next year, Flores dropped out of the race. By that point, he had raised more money than any other contender.
“Flores said the donations had no impact on his decisions.”
Upon hearing that, Flores’s contributors decided to stop giving the alderman money because they weren’t getting anything in return. Right?
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“At the end of a recent interview, Matlak asked a reporter to remind readers that he is now working as a real estate broker. The firm that employs him had contributed to his political funds. And his new boss had won zoning changes in the 32nd Ward from Matlak when he was alderman.”
Unbelievably perfect.
“Matlak also received thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Jakub Kosiba, the developer of the ‘French Embassy’ mansion on Wood, and his real estate agent wife, Christine Kosiba. In an e-mail response to questions, Christine Kosiba said she and her husband went through ‘all necessary legal steps’ and were unaware of any neighbor’s opposition to the zoning change.”
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The Trib makes the correlation:
Number of zoning changes in the last four-year council term, which ended in May
Ted Matlak: 144
Manuel Flores: 115
Walter Burnett: 81
William J.P. Banks: 72
Billy Ocasio: 56
Amount of campaign donations from development-related interests since December 2002
Ted Matlak: $472,585
Manuel Flores: $369,648
Walter Burnett: $343,950
William J.P. Banks: $343,950
Billy Ocasio: $204,230
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“Chicago aldermen wield near-absolute power over development in their wards, but most insist they get neighborhood input from community groups or handpicked advisory panels before approving or rejecting projects.
“What they don’t say is that those groups often are stacked with real estate agents, developers and campaign donors with vested interests in the zoning decisions made by the aldermen.
“One alderman backed zoning changes that let a developer tear down several modest homes on the Near West Side and replace them with three-story condos, projects that were OKd by a community group.
“The group was familiar with the developer – he’s a longtime leader of the organization.
“Another alderman got the backing of his own advisory panel before he approved the zoning change for a redevelopment project in Logan Square, a neighborhood in the midst of the city’s gentrification wave. The owner of the land happened to sit on the panel. He sold the property, with its valuable zoning change, for nearly $1 million more than he had paid less than two years earlier.”
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“When Ald. Rey Colon (35th) was elected to the City Council in 2003, he promised to form an advisory panel to give residents a greater voice in the development of the rapidly gentrifying Logan Square area.
“In 2006, Colon sponsored a zoning change for 30 new condos with first-floor storefronts at Armitage Avenue and Whipple Street after his handpicked panel gave its blessing.
“Among the panel members was Mark Fishman – a major campaign contributor to Colon.
“The developer for the project? That was Fishman too.”
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Daley was virtually absent from the Tribune’s investigation, which is unfortunate. But he was asked about the findings on Monday.
“Mayor Richard Daley on Monday defended the Chicago tradition that allows aldermen to dictate the fate of development in their wards, backing a status quo in which the City Council routinely ignores the recommendations of planners,” the Tribune reports.
“And Daley made it clear he has no intention of trying to prohibit contributions from developers to aldermanic campaign funds or making other changes in a system critics contend is ripe for abuse.
“Zoning is their prerogative,’ Daley said of the aldermen. ‘They are elected by local . . . residents in regards to the quality of life’ they provide in each ward.”
Chicago government is exactly backwards. The city council has ceded many of its powers to the mayor in return for powers it has no business having itself.
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As usual, the mayor’s chief concern was the headlines any response by him would generate.
“You yell at me one day, you’ll criticize me one day – ‘Mayor Daley has too much power’ – and then you call all the aldermen derogatory names. . . . Now you want me to control everything.”
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“Daley later was asked at a South Side news conference about the appearance of a conflict of interest.”
The appearance? Didn’t the paper just find it was actual conflict of interest?
“‘Well, you’ve known this for 20 years. You’ve never printed it,’ barked Daley, who has been mayor since 1989. ‘Don’t tell me about it. Now all of a sudden you wake up on Jan. 28 and you talk about it.’
On this, the mayor is right. Which leads us to what’s wrong with the Tribune series.
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On the day of the series, my friend Tracy Jake Siska, of the Chicago Justice Project, sent me this e-mail:
“It seems that the Tribune likes to do their best journalism when it matters the least. The timing of this article seems a lot like the death penalty series. Like the Tribune begrudgingly was forced to cover an issue that should have been written about years ago.
“The picture on the front page shows an older version of a house that probably got zoning help to be built and probably was not a big hit of the neighborhood when it was built. They are bitching about someone with more money building a house tooooo big for the neighborhood.
“Wow, do you think they cared what the neighborhood thought when they were building their house? The picture basically depicts the economic divide of Chicago: average Joe – makes good money but dreams about being truly rich – and truly rich who has a higher degree of clout then the middle guy and low guy put together.
“The City is on the fourth or five generation of gentrification, gentrification that is now spread all the way to the poorest community in the City, North Lawndale.”
On Monday, another friend active in neighborhood issues downtown sent me this:
“It’s a great story. The question is, Why didn’t they write this story ten years ago?
“Ten years ago in the 42nd Ward (umm, where the WGN is) under Natarus’ reign, when great small buildings would be struck down only to be replaced with boring cast concrete towers. A stop at the Board of Elections office for Natarus’ D2’s would show that in many instances, the building owner, the purchaser, zoning lawyers, construction companies and any and all new business tenants would have made donations to Natarus in the immediate period proceeding the razing.
“Then Billy Banks and relatives and their zoning hearings. Real live free theater. If this had come out ten years ago, the neighborhoods would have stood a chance.”
That’s exactly right. What the Tribune is reporting is history. To get an idea of how refracted the paper’s view is, consider this post last week by Margaret Lyons at Chicagoist:
“The accelerating recession oddly coincides with the release of Forbes magazine’s list of “America’s Most Lucrative Neighborhoods,” which includes Wicker Park near the top of the list. With a 1,870-percent increase in median home sale price since 1990, Wicker Park’s property value appreciation has been faster than just about anywhere in the country. Maybe we can finally stop attaching the word ‘bohemian’ to the neighborhood now.”
I was struck by the Trib’s opening example from Bucktown. The Greater Wicker Park Area has been under siege for 20 years, and the wars were fought particularly hard in the 1990s. Where was the Tribune then? Like most mainstream media outlets, they were writing their annual “gentrification is the price of progress if you want safe streets” articles.
Now there’s a bank on just about every corner in Wicker Park – the poster child for trumped-up gentrification – including a Bank of America in the North-Milwaukee-Damen pinnacle of the Flatiron Building. It’s part and parcel of the same phenomenon; the local media missed the entire story of “the changing face of Chicago neighborhoods” in real time.
In fact, former First Ward Ald. Jesse Granato eventually lost his city council seat due to uncontrolled development in the area. As I’ve recalled here before, Granato once unburdened his soul on me a couple years later at the Beachwood Inn. You see, he was angry. He had done the mayor’s bidding all those years, he said, and what did he get in return? Stiffed. The mayor hadn’t offered him a job after he lost his seat.
Granato’s replacement is “reformer” Manny Flores, identified by the Tribune as one of the chief culprits of developer kissy-face. Flores lives on my street, just a couple buildings down. In one of the ugliest, outsized and ill-fitting condo monstrosities in the neighborhood.
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So what’s wrong with the Trib series?
1. It’s too late.
2. It lays the blame at the feet of the aldermen but somehow avoids pinning down the role of Daley in all of this. After all, Granato says he was doing what the mayor wanted, and you can bet other aldermen are doing that too, despite the apparent (alleged) best efforts of city planners rendered useless.
3. And just like, say, the Tribune’s fine biographical investigation into Barack Obama last spring, this one will come and go. The questions raised will be forgotten soon enough. Sometimes it seems like the Tribune wants to show off what it can do more than it wants to impact real life. And then it forgets what it’s done and it’s a blank slate for its subjects all over again.
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Several years ago I interviewed former Tribune projects editor Bob Blau (now the managing editor of The Baltimore Sun) for a profile of editor-in-chief Ann Marie Lipinski, who had just been named to the position.
We talked about an amazing piece of journalism the paper did that took a single day of city council activities and investigated the hidden meanings and connections behind it all. It was a masterpiece, and it used the corruption charges that cost Daley city council floor leader Pat Huels his seat as its jumping off point. But it was the Sun-Times that had already broken the Huels story. The Sun-Times coverage was rough and piecemeal, like its initial Hired Truck stories, but the paper drove the story every day. The Trib series frittered into the mist.
Blau told me that was a wake-up call to the Trib – that they got caught flat-footed on Huels and had learned a lesson. I’m not so sure. Trib series’ are often what should be the last piece of coverage that has already broken daily. Instead, the paper seems to often see its projects as ends in themselves. Or like autopsies instead of cures. That wins awards but it doesn’t do much for anybody else.
Posted on January 29, 2008