Affordable Housing Project Spiked

Crain's Chicago Business has the story about how the Parkview Lofts affordable housing project across from McKinley Park has been canceled by property owners after public funding for it was pulled following environmental protesters targeting MAT Asphalt .

According to Crain's the properties are now for sale (again) including the potential for market-rate housing, but likely not affordable housing, unless mayoral priorities change, said development team member Tom Brantley.

One of the quoted developers noted how the two buildings are "in the path of progress" and are likely to be redeveloped.

Thank you for your feedback. That's a very good question!
To me, much of this ties into the disingenuousness of many of the supposedly environmental protests going on around here. The protesters have defined their Big Bad, set up their operations and fund-raising apparatus based on their narrative, and ignore all other sources of local emissions, even monstrous ones that have recently received expansions to their operating permits (Wheatland Tube) or federally regulated carcinogen emitters much closer than MAT Asphalt (like the powder coating company right next to the K-12 school ) or even historically giant stinkers with recent industrial fires (Innova Foods).
However, because of the collusion between the local development council and these environmental protesters , the 1769 W. Pershing Road project may have a good shot at not being protested. Because it has the imprimateur and seeming engagement of the development council, it won't be protested by the environmental organizations for which council members are unstated collaborators.
It looks like the Department of Planning and Development is unfortunately considering the development council as a legitimate organization, even though it's comprised of a small cadre of unelected, self-appointed, unqualified individuals who never allow the public to participate in their operations or policies, and who spend more time attacking local businesses than helping them.
If MAT Asphalt is indeed such a danger, then the protesters should line up to kill all residential in the 1769 W. Pershing Road project, just like they did with the affordable housing project down the street. Indeed they should protest any market rate housing that comes into this area, however, I doubt they'll protest any environmental harms they can't tie into their specific opposition to MAT Asphalt and the funds they raise off of it. I would not be at all surprised to see the affordable housing building change into deluxe park-facing apartments without a peep from the "environmentalists" around here.

Thanks for your thoughts and questions.

The development council has never publicly protested the affordable housing development, but when I was on the board, some other members consistently spoke out against it during board meetings, without recusing themselves because of self-interest from the large, park-facing apartment building they owned exactly across the park from the now-killed affordable housing development.

The only local businesses that the McKinley Park Development Council has attacked is the McKinley Park News (without investigation, outreach or follow-up, as I wrote in a recent letter from the editor ) and industrialist Michael Tadin Jr., one of the owners of MAT Asphalt, and his purchase of the derelict Damen silos property.

Curiously enough, pre-COVID, a constituent regularly brought up the topic of redeveloping the Damen silos at development council meetings, but the council never undertook any action or investigation. When I was on the board, it formally passed a motion to not advocate for or against any particular development (or business), but instead be a channel of communications for the neighborhood. This clearly has been dropped by the wayside.

As I previously reported in the McKinley Park News , canceling of City of Chicago funding in 2020 came about after a closed-door meeting with unnamed "neighborhood advocates" and Chicago Department of Housing Commissioner Marisa Novara:

According to a copy of City of Chicago email correspondence received by this publication, Chicago Department of Housing Commissioner Marisa Novara met in late June 2020 with anti- MAT Asphalt advocates from the McKinley Park neighborhood."Advocates revisited their concerns about locating an affordable housing development in such close proximity to an asphalt plant that they believe is harmful to existing and future residents," the email states.

No one on the McKinley Park Development Council or Neighbors for Environmental Justice disclosed whether they were involved in this meeting or not, nor would the department of housing reveal who participated. However, on the same week as the closed-door meeting, one of the self-interested, property-owning development council board members -- an officer no less -- quit the council without providing any notice. This individual was at the time (and still may be) employed by the City of Chicago, working in its housing and development departments, with direct knowledge of internal initiatives like the affordable housing development.

Of course, Neighbors for Environmental Justice was at the vanguard of killing the affordable housing development, and they've directly colluded with the development council to attempt to damage my neighborhood business. If you know the individuals who are involved and their relations, and have been tracking and covering this for years as I have, you can see the direct collusion across these supposedly independent community groups, and the back-channel politicking they engage in that is prohibited for such 501(c)(3) not-for-profit groups.

The real question is how they're going to interfere in the latest development at 1769 W. Pershing Road. During the presentation this week, Nolan mentioned how a committee of three community representatives would be involved in this decision, but there was zero disclosure of who this would be, the standards for qualification, and how the decision-making process would proceed. (We've asked the department of housing for this, and they have not replied.) This hearkens back to the closed-door meeting in 2020 that was a key step in killing our neighborhood's chance for a big, nice affordable housing development.

Our neighborhood deserves transparency around development decisions (not to mention real environmental and development organizations), and these unelected, self-appointed, neighborhood-damaging saboteurs should not be allowed to get what they want via inside connections and secretive, selfish decision-making.