Plans to convert a vacant commercial building on Church Street to a seven-unit co-housing townhome development go before Evanston’s Land Use Commission Wednesday night.
The century-old former National Awards property at 1611 Church St. has been vacant for several years.
The existing zoning for the property, adopted in 2009, imposed an extremely detailed redevelopment model for the National Awards site and the Cahill Plumbing property to the east, calling for a specific alignment of townhomes developed around a new extension of Florence Avenue.
But with the properties not under common ownership, that plan has proved infeasible, city staff says, despite discussions with several potential developers of the National Awards site over the years.
So they’re recommending that the Land Use Commission approve the zoning change required for the current proposal.
Thomas Gourguechon, project manager for the development, says several people have banded together to create “a diverse, multi-generational housing solution” that is “affordable, creates social cohesion, limits expenses through self-management and maintenance, is environmentally responsible and sustainable.”
He says the property will be owned by a not-for-profit housing cooperative.
Gourguechon says the co-op model creates financing issues that mean prospective purchasers will likely have to come up with down payments of 30% to 50% — much higher than for a condominium or individually-owned townhome.
That, Gourguechon says, makes meeting the city’s inclusionary housing ordinance requirements onsite infeasible, and so the developer is proposing to make a fee-in-lieu payment of $269,000 to the city’s affordable housing fund instead.
He says sale prices for the co-op units are expected to range from just over $401,000 to nearly $589,000, depending on unit sizes.
The Land Use Commission will make a recommendation about the proposal to the City Council, which makes the final decision on proposed zoning changes.
Hopefully, a requirement for affordable housing is built into such a project!
Evanston needs to continue supplying such for our community.
See the 9th paragraph of the story.
— Bill
Not sure how this is affordable housing. For to six hundred thousand with half down doesn’t sound too affordable to me.
Hi Peter,
We quoted the developer as saying the project is affordable.
As described in the story, it does comply with the inclusionary housing ordinance — which is designed to require that 10% of new housing units in larger developments are “affordable’ by a particular definition established by the city.
Since “affordable” has no generally agreed upon definition — we’re all free to define it however we like.
Presumably the people who are signing up to be part of the co-op have concluded the project is “affordable” to them.
FWIW, Zillow says that the current typical home value in the 60201 ZIP code is $496,745.
–Bill