Tag Archives: apartments

To build or not to build a 20-story high-rise in Oak Park

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While a proposed 20-story high-rise in Oak Park is unique in that it would be built just outside the Frank Lloyd Wright historic district, the conversation about whether the building should be constructed or not is one that may be facing more suburbs in the coming years:

She said the building’s size has been the primary complaint, but there has also been grumbling over the modern design looming over the historic Wright district.

“I think, in the end, a lot of people could live with the aesthetics if it weren’t for the height and the density,” she said.

Officials have been trying to attract new business and tourists by making the village more “walkable.” About $15 million in streetscaping improvements has been proposed, with $5 million already approved by the board.

Village Manager Tom Barwin says the building would help visually draw the downtown district together while creating a “Hey, what’s that?” mentality.

In built-out communities like Oak Park that have little or no open space, projects like this are going to become more commonplace. It sounds like the typical criticisms are being raised: the building is too tall, there are too many housing units (is this tied to the type of people who live in apartments or the strain on city services?), and it doesn’t fit with the character of the community. But the city suggests it has a plan to be more “walkable,” a buzzword among many designers (and perhaps started by New Urbanists), which is supposed to reduce congestion and improve neighborhood and community life.

On one hand, it might be easy to look at the criticisms of the project and suggest that some residents would resist almost any kind of change to their community. They know the Oak Park that they like and they will do a lot to try to maintain that. On the other hand, if land-challenged suburbs are going to experience any growth or change, redevelopment is going to be necessary. Of course, communities don’t want too many projects that are completely out of place but they don’t want to remain stagnant either. The trick is going to be how to balance the character of the community with change that is going to happen. Perhaps it doesn’t have to come in the form of 20-story buildings but I suspect more large Chicago suburbs, including places like Naperville, are going to seriously consider high-rise projects in the next few decades.

Stereotypes of apartment renters

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Americans who are homeowners, whether they own single-family homes, condos, and townhomes, are typically regarded as respectable, hard-working, and upstanding citizens who have sought after the American Dream. But there are different opinions regarding those who rent apartments. Here is an example from Manteca, California:

You rarely see landlords for single family homes that stringent and quite frankly, not all homeowners could pass such muster.

That is why it is a tad absurd that a number of homeowners when confronted with news that someone is proposing a $30 million apartment complex in their neighborhood believe it will be allowed to be occupied by rowdy, inconsiderate slobs, who will park cars all over the adjoining neighborhood and pursue a lifestyle that will drive home prices down.

If you want to see such behavior, there are plenty examples in Manteca neighborhoods – including those built since 2000.

No one is debating that there aren’t examples of somewhat trashy older apartment complexes that let everything go to hell. In Manteca, though, they are fairly rare due to the aggressive stance the city has taken. And in fairness to many owners of smaller and older apartment buildings in town where rents definitely are more affordable they are doing a good job of keeping their complexes in shape and devoid of problem tenants.

To go after single family homes whose tenants create such problems is much more difficult as often a landlord will have only one or two homes and live out of the area.

It is also true that the much more stringent construction and development standards of today make it next to impossible for rents for new complexes to be relatively low. That is why Paseo Apartments starts out at $975 a month for a one bedroom and one bathroom apartment.

In my research on suburban development, I found a number of examples where suburbanites were opposed to apartments because of the type of people who live in apartments. One complaint was about the transient nature of apartment living. The assumption was that single-family homeowners are more rooted in a community while apartment dwellers move more frequently and care less about individual municipalities. Having too many apartments would mean that a greater proportion of residents wouldn’t really care about the community. This was commonly tied to the disruption of a community’s single-family home character

But a second complaint included thoughts about low-income residents and seemed tied at times to race and ethnicity. Since these suburbs were heavily white, apartments were seen as places where less wealthy and non-white residents could live. Such residents might engage in more uncouth behavior, sullying the reputation of idyllic, white suburbs. Apartment complexes are viewed as crime magnets because lower-income, non-white residents are assumed to be more prone to crime.

It sounds like both issues might be taking place in Manteca: even nicer apartment complexes with high rents and amenities are not granted the moral equivalency of a nice single-family home neighborhood. Additionally, the author tries to point out that there is anti-social behavior in single-family homes as well as apartment complexes but this isn’t often recognized.

With all of the talk about more multi-family housing construction, these issues will need to be overcome in many communities.

(Side note: a third complaint about apartments I found is the argument that apartments don’t generate enough tax revenue for the services that will be required. This commonly is tied to school funding as apartments, depending on their price and size, might attract more families who will overburden the schools. So senior apartments might be more likely to be approved than three or four bedroom apartments that will likely draw families to the community.)