Affordable Housing In Winnetka: The Basics

This is the first article in a series on Winnetka's affordable housing plan that will appear at Winnetka-Glencoe Patch. If you have specific questions about affordable housing or one that our articles haven't touched on, feel free to post a comment and we'll do our best to answer it quickly. You can also e-mail your questions and suggestions to Sara Fay, editor of Winnetka-Glencoe Patch, at saraf@patch.com.

After mass mailings, bulk e-mails, a front page Tribune story and a five-month hiatus, Winnetka's affordable housing initiative will be in front of the village trustees Tuesday night.

A study session on the controversial initiative is at 7:30 p.m. at . The meeting will include a presentation by the Plan Commission and an opportunity for public comment. However, the trustees will not vote on the issue during the meeting. 

History of Affordable Housing in Winnetka

Tuesday's meeting is far from the first discussion on affordable housing in Winnetka. Over the past few decades, the village has demonstrated an interest in such initiatives:

• Winnetka's comprehensive plan from 1979 mentions objectives to help senior citizens stay in the village in moderately priced units and enable the local workforce to live in the village.

• Twenty years later, Winnetka's comprehensive plan observed a growing lack of housing diversity in the village due to the diminishing number of multifamily and rental units.

• In March 2005, Winnetka approved an affordable housing plan to comply with a state law. One month later, Winnetka became a home rule community through a referendum vote. The new home rule powers enabled Winnetka to come up with and control the provisions in an amended affordable housing plan--crafting it to fit the village's specific needs instead of those determined by Illinois and maintaining local control over the provisions of the affordable housing plan instead of control by a state entity.

• That amended affordable housing plan also tasked the village's Plan Commission to study the issue and come up with recommendations to achieve housing diversity in the community.

• In 2007, the Plan Commission ordered a study on Winnetka's affordable housing needs and recommendations on how to address those needs.
• The study, completed by the Nathalie P. Voorhees Center for Neighborhood and Community Improvement, exposed a loss of 38 percent (about 262) of rental housing units over 20 years in the village, displacing senior citizens to nearby communities with affordable housing plans.

• The Plan Commission held meetings and workshops in 2007 and 2008, and eventually came up with the Winnetka Affordable Housing Report, also called "Reinvigorating a Tradition of Varied, Moderately Priced and Affordable Housing: A Report to the Village Council." The commission approved it in December 2010, passing it on to the village council.

What The Affordable Housing Report Says

Winnetka's affordable housing plan is multifaceted. It discusses the availability of different types of housing available within the village and offers proposals to increase the diversity of options. Proposals in the plan include:

• Preserving downtown apartments and "recapturing" those that are used as commercial space.
• Relaxing restrictions on coach house renovation and encouraging their use as rental properties.
• Establishing a community land trust -- a nonprofit that would purchase less expensive homes and then resell them to families who would own the building but lease the land from the trust.
• Setting aside a small percentage of any new multi-family developments for affordable units.

For more information on Winnetka's affordable housing initiative, check Winnetka-Glencoe Patch later today for a story on some of the plan's opponents and proponents.