A city committee is scheduled Tuesday to review plans to build 19 townhomes and 12 apartment units along the curve of the old Mayfair railroad tracks just west of Green Bay Road in Evanston.
The proposal for Wesley Court from developer John Cleary of Temp Capital Inc. is designed to address what its marketing study says is a severe shortage of new construction homes for owner-occupants.
The study from AtProperties, says that given Evanston’s recent population growth, and the city’s current split between owner-occupied and rental housing, the city needs 73 new owner-occupied homes per year to meet demand, but has only seen an average of five built per year in the past five years.
The city has seen a substantial increase in new rental housing, with about 2,000 new rental units built over the past decade.
The proposed development’s townhomes would be marketed for sale, while the apartments would be rentals.
The developer is proposing to make three of the rental apartments available under the city’s inclusionary housing program.
The plans call for creating a new private street that would connect Wesley Avenue to Jackson Avenue a block to the west.
Most of the townhomes would face a private walkway, while several others would front on Green Bay Road. All owners would access their garages from the private road.
Cleary has told the city he expect the townhouse units to be priced at about $575,000 each.
The project site is currently split between R4 and R5 zoning districts according to city staff and the city is seeking to have the R5 portion rezoned to R4 so all of the site will be in the same zone.
The City Council previously removed a portion of the site from the West Evanston Overlay District and will need to remove the remainder of the site from the overlay district as part of the process to approve the project.
The development is expected to require several site development allowances.
Cleary in 2020 sought approval to build a slightly smaller version of the project, with 16 townhomes. That project did not advance at that time.
I drive by this area regularly, I think this would be a great addition. We do need to “fill some holes” here in Evanston, this cleverly does fill one. More home ownership stabilizes communities.