Fairview Village Expansion Goes To The Mattresses Updated

Both sides of the Fairview Village expansion effort have pushed, pulled, and jockeyed for position. On one side is Fairview Village, (history here, and present offerings here) an exceptional senior community that offers a wide variety of housing and care options for residents, and has proven a good neighbor on th east side of Fairview Avenue south of 63rd Street for many years. On the other are the residents of the west side of Fairview, who have looked at the single home residential zoning in their area change to higher density use twice, and are looking at it again.

Click on image for a full sized view. What was to be seven single family homes may now be 32 condos and a clubhouse.

Correction: I had assumed Jim Russ Jr. represented Fairview Village. He does not. Although at the meeting, he is not their attorney. I will say, as I did originally, that Russ knows the turf, and knows the boundaries of the turf that makes up what is acceptable to the Plan Commission and Council, resulting in good success getting projects he represents approved.

Plus, I had enough feedback from elected officials, I went back and found several errors.

VC: IHDA MRB OK

Don’t interfere with my free market. Don’t bring those people into my village. We don’t want trash living in homes they can’t keep up. Don’t tell me who I can and can’t sell to. Keep the government out of the real estate market. Yada yada yada. Blah blu blah blah blah. When it comes to housing, there’s no shortage of people lining up to tell other people what they can’t do. You can’t do this; don’t you dare think about doing that.

A Packed Agenda Updated

If you ever wanted to see what a village council meeting is like in person, this coming Tuesday would be a prime night.

No more flag lots

Council voted unanimously tonight to amend the muni code so as to ban further flag lots in Downers Grove. Commissioner Tully said he was looking forward to this day for seven years, and he had much to do with shepherding the ban through to approval.

Somebody is getting it right…

On March 10 at the village council workshop, staff will forward new language and changes to Section 20 of the municipal code that will effectively end the practice of “flag lots” in Downers Grove.

Home Foreclosures in DG

As of yesterday, here’s how DG is doing with property in foreclosure. We’re about in the middle. Naperville, Westmont, Lisle are doing a little better, Woodridge is a little worse. Bolingbrook is getting hammered.

In some cases, these families are living beyond their means and now it all is crashing down; not on them really, but on us. That’s too bad, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out you can’t keep drawing more money out of a house forever. Fred Flipper and his family refi’d once and bought new cars. They refi’d again for the time share condo, marina space, and boat up in the Dells. They refi’d again when Fred Jr. went to that prestige college. As long as the house prices kept going up it sorta worked. Now they toss the keys and walk away, leaving the mess for someone else.

For us.

Trending the Future of Code Enforcement

A lot of people thought 4929 Forest unapproved building alterations were no big deal; not worth pursuing. No health hazard or safety issues were involved, and had builder Michael Prince come before village council (as he had twice already) asking permission in advance of changes (as required), they would have been granted.

Commissioner Waldack had reservations and made a motion that the walls be changed back to the original brick masonry. It died quietly for lack of a second, with no discussion about issuing 4929 Forest an occupancy permit with the condition Mike Prince not start another building until he finished changing back to the approved and spec’d masonry walls on this building.

"A slap in the face of the Village."

That’s a direct quote from Commissioner Marylin Schnell, speaking out forcefully on Michael Prince’s 4929 Forest LLC project having changed the look and feel of the project, apparently to lower construction costs, but bypassing village requirements for prior approval of such changes.

So, is it a slap in the face or not?

Ad Hoc Committee on Housing

Moving forward. Council Resolution 00-02918.

The enabling resolution would provide for a final report to be provided to the Village Council on or before January 22, 2008, at which time the Ad Hoc Committee’s work would conclude unless further extended by action of the Village Council.

Copies of the individual recommendations of Commissioners as the Ad Hoc Committee’s composition have not been attached because several were verbally received.”

The size of the committee will be eleven people, will have a specific make up,and will be chaired and co-chaired by council members. Unless my ears deceived me (and they did not) Neustadt and Durkin volunteered to be on the committee several weeks ago. Both good choices: Geoff Neustadt and his wife lived through the nightmare of finding a home they could afford here in Downers Grove where they both work. Sean Durkin works for a bank that has a housing assitance program for it’s employees, and also has access to (public) financial information, organized so it can quickly be brought into the discussion. Between the two they have a reasonable perpective and can bring usefull information and insight to the process.

Word to the naysayers…

Government “interferes” in housing substantially already. The home loan tax exemption is just one example.

Bernanke is directly intervening to fend off a meltdown of the mortgage industry due to banks, via wall street and sub prime and Alt-A lenders, moved $2.5 trillion of questionable mortgage backed securities onto,among others, private and public pension funds. Can you say Bear Stearns?