Glenview mulls update to affordable housing plan

A factoid that came out of the Village of Glenview's Affordable Housing Workshop was that village seniors have reported waiting lists of three to five years to get into a place they can afford.

Some developments have closed their wait-lists completely.

So perhaps as one caller to Monday night's remote workshop said about the need for more affordable housing, "people are waiting for it."

Village President Jim Patterson and the board of trustees are responding, partly because they believe there should be room for people to "age in place," and partly because they see statistics such as 24% of students in Glenview School District 34 are on a subsidized lunch program.

Village officials also want to be on the right side of the Affordable Housing Planning and Appeals Act of Illinois, in effect as 2004 began and updated in 2013.

That act - which provides no penalty for noncompliance - mandates that communities have 10% of their housing stock be "affordable," where the full costs of either a house or rental unit are no more than 30% of that household's gross annual income.

Within Glenview's corporate boundaries, 7.3% of its housing stock is affordable; add housing on the approximately 1 square mile of unincorporated land and the percentage bumps up to 9.3%.

The good news is Glenview doesn't have to start from scratch in crafting an affordable housing plan; its 2015 plan can be updated if that's the chosen path.

Then again, Glenview director of community development Jeff Brady pulled up a 2019 League of Women Voters of Glenview/Glencoe study that found in 2017 that 31% of Glenview residents were paying more than 30% on housing, there was no incentive for developers to provide affordable housing, and of four multiunit projects developed since 2014, none included affordable housing.

In an update, the study also noted that due to COVID-19 repercussions, "The situation in Glenview will soon grow more serious."

The village itself reviewed the 2015 plan with developers of nine different residential projects, according to the workshop agenda, and requested that affordable units be included. None obliged.

As 16-year trustee Debby Karton said while identifying examples of affordable housing successes, such a plan "was always important."

Patterson suggested a second workshop should be in order, hopefully with 2020 census data. Trustee Mary Cooper stressed that school and park districts should be involved. Zoning issues and developer fees are part of the recipe that would be part of future discussions.

Also, coinciding with some of Patterson's final thoughts, came trustee John Hinkamp: "We have to look at the economics of it. Who's going to pay for it?" he said.

"I think we need more people's opinions," Patterson said.