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New Townhomes at Church and Dodge Are Affordable and Energy-Efficient

George Gauthier of EHC, who has overseen several affordable-housing projects in Evanston, has just completed an affordable-townhome duplex at 1710-12 Dodge Ave., in partnership with Evanston Community Development Corporation (ECDC) and the City of Evanston.

The two 1,700-square-foot townhomes, mirror images of one another, will be sold for $185,000 each to families that meet income guidelines.

The City subsidized the project with two grants; First Bank & Trust of Evanston gave the construction loan and ECDC provided marketing help, said Mr. Gauthier.

The homes
The townhomes have separate front entrances and separate two-car garages but share front and back yards, said Ellen Galland of Rockwell and Associates, the townhomes' architect.

The shell of the house is tight, to protect against drafts, said Ms. Galland.

"We put as much insulation into it as was reasonable," said Victor Freise of Zigmil Construction, the contractor for the project.

The project used engineered lumber and Hardiplank [fiber-cement] siding, said Mr. Freise. "These materials are stronger and more durable than wood," he added. The appliances, heating and air-conditioning are "Energy Star"-rated - all of which will help lower the utility costs for the homeowner, said Ms. Galland. In fact the entire building "is in the process of being certified as Energy Star," she said. Energy Star is a program created by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy to help consumers save money and reduce air pollution.

"The intention is that families in these homes will have lower utility bills than in older Evanston homes," said Ms. Galland.

"When you're selling to moderate-income households, you have to make it so they won't have problems later on. You don't want them to be disappointed in their house." -- George Gauthier of Evanston Housing Coalition

The kitchen - with range, microwave, dishwasher and maple cabinets - and family room/dining room take up two-thirds of the first floor. A full bath and another room are found in the rear. Upstairs there are three bedrooms and a bath; the full basement has one large room and a laundry room.

The homes are designed around the concept of flexible space, said Ms. Galland.

The extra room on the first floor could become a den, a homework room, a TV room or another bedroom, she said. "The basement could also become a family room - or a room dedicated to noisy teenagers," she said.

"We concentrated on bedroom space rather than common space," said Mr. Gauthier.

Ms. Galland, Mr. Gauthier and Mr. Freise chose the flooring, the light fixtures - which use energy-efficient and long-lasting compact fluorescent bulbs - and the amenities with an eye to the future. "We want things to be energy-efficient and lasting," said Ms. Galland. "The purchasers shouldn't have to be saddled with a lot of extra costs."

Added Mr. Gauthier, "When you're selling to moderate-income households, you have to make it so they won't have problems later on. You don't want them to be disappointed in their house."

The financing
The property was previously used for a single-family house that went into foreclosure, and the City invited EHC to submit a grant proposal to renovate the property. "The City had two interests: nuisance abatement and affordable housing," said Mr.Gauthier.

Mr. Gauthier said EHC "sort of backed in" to the sale price. Conventional wisdom has it that a household should spend no more than 30 percent of its income on housing. The target purchasers of these townhomes have an annual income of $58,000-$69,000 per year, depending on the size of the household.

"We're aiming for families who make 80 percent of the area median income," said Mr. Gauthier. Those levels are $59,600 for a family of four, $64,350 for a family of five, and $69,150 for a family of six.

The developer, the architect, contractor, the marketer and most of the subcontractors for this project are from Evanston.

The purchasers should be able to participate in the City's first-time-homebuyers program, said Mr. Gauthier. Under the program the buyers, who must have a 3-percent down payment, obtain a mortgage for 80 percent of the purchase price. "Then they get a soft second mortgage for 20 percent of the value of the property," he said. "This gives them some equity in the property. No payments on the second mortgage are due for five years, and the first 25 years of the main mortgage require principal-only payments - no interest," he added.

ECDC is actively seeking Evanston renters to become purchasers for the townhomes. "We used a target-marketing approach for these townhomes," said Catherine Katonah of ECDC. "We're looking for people who live in Evanston and who are ready to buy a house - people who have taken a home-buyers class and have shown an interest in saving [money for a down payment]." She said ECDC sent letters to everyone who had taken a recent home-buyers class as well as to people living in the area who had been identified as interested in becoming homeowners. "We're looking for renters in the Fifth Ward who want to buy," she said.

Buyer eligibility
To qualify for the City program - for these townhomes or other homes in Evanston - purchasers must either live or be employed in Evanston, must have not owned a home in the past three years, must be able to afford a mortgage with a down payment of at least 3 percent of the purchase price. In addition, they must complete a HUD-approved home-buying course before they move in.

The units can be sold at any time, said Mr. Gauthier, but they must remain affordable for 20 years. The seller may sell only to another family earning 80 percent of the area median income and the price can reflect only a 3-percent-per-year increase over the original price, he added.

Cost, subsidies and taxes
Creating affordable housing in Evanston requires some sort of subsidy, said Mr. Gauthier. In this case, the City of Evanston came through. The cost of the project was $527,000 exclusive of the land. The City supported this project with two grants, said Mr. Gauthier: The first grant, for $150,000, allowed EHC to purchase the property at a foreclosure sale and raze the existing house. For the project itself, EHC obtained a grant of $166,000 from the City's HOME funds - a subsidy that works out to about $83,000 per unit, exclusive of land costs.

The townhomes will be sold for $185,000 each, and "that's the only transaction the purchaser will see," said Mr. Gauthier.

Further, although Mr. Gauthier had the units appraised and learned their market value was $310,000 each, the property taxes will be based upon the amount of the sale, $185,000. He estimates the taxes will be between $4,500 and $5,000. Depending upon one's perspective, this is a boon or a problem for the City: On the one hand, the units will not generate as much property-tax revenue as if they were sold for the appraised value; on the other hand, the property taxes on the site as improved are greater than those generated before the renovation.

At First Bank & Trust of Evanston, the directors say they support affordable housing.

"Affordable housing is a very strong priority of our bank," said Jay Lytle, managing director of First Bank & Trust. "It's something we are passionate about. We have financed construction loans and some of the end-loans for most of the affordable-housing developments in Evanston."

And the members of Evanston Community Development Corporation remain committed to seeing the rejuvenation of the Church/Dodge area in a manner that will allow residents to remain there. Both EHC's Mr. Gauthier and ECDC's Ms. Katonah say they would like to see the development of affordable housing for even lower-income families - those earning only about 60 percent of the area median income.

Building the Affordable Townhomes on Dodge Avenue

Although regular travelers along Dodge Avenue tracked the six-and-one-half-month construction of the townhomes, the inception of the project was in late 2004, said George Gauthier of Evanston Housing Coalition, developer of the project.

After the purchase and demolition of the existing house, Zigmil Construction, the contractor, began preparing the site for its new occupants. They found "two layers of driveways or parking lots or former lawns - 14 to 16 inches thick - beneath a few inches of topsoil," said Victor Freise of Zigmil, costing the project a little extra in time and money.

A home-grown project
This is an Evanston project from the ground up: Evanston Housing Coaltion; Rockwell and Associates, the architects; Zigmil Construction; and Evanston Community Development Corporation, the marketer, are all Evanston-based and Evanston-owned.

In addition, the majority of the subcontractors on the project were Evanston businesses, said Joel Freise of Zigmil.

For seven weeks of the project, the Zigmil crew took on two apprentices sent to them by Youth Job Center. "They did well. The [apprentice] program gives young adults a chance to get a taste of what it's like to build a home," said Victor Freise.

Next steps
The work was not new to most of the groups involved in the 1710-12 Dodge Ave. townhomes. Mr. Gauthier, through Evanston Housing Coalition, has developed several affordable single-family homes in Evanston over the past decade.

Several of Ms. Galland's recent projects, large and small, involved energy efficiency - a solar house on the lakefront, for example, and an elevator in a local church that operates without hydraulic fluid.

Mr. Freise said he was "happy to be part of the project, because it brought more affordable homes to Evanston. "If the project went well, the City might spend more money on other such projects," he said.

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Council Approves Single-Family Homes Only for Kendall College Site

In approving the planned development, the Council incorporated language that it hoped would keep the property on the tax rolls, conditioning approval of the planned development on an agreement to pay taxes. They did this so that any not-for-profit organization purchasing the property in the future would still have to pay property taxes.

Alderman Ann Rainey, 8th Ward, said she had been contacted recently by a real estate consultant hired by Roycemore School, which hoped to purchase the Kendall site.

Developer Robert Buono of Smithfield Properties said that claims that he plans to sell the property to Roycemore or any other non-profit "have no basis in fact." But he said he objected to the Council's effort to bar transfer of the property to a non-profit because he felt the condition was arbitrarily applied and constituted a denial of any property owner's Constitutional rights.

Earlier the Preservation Commission had voted to deny the developer a certificate of appropriateness for demolition of several buildings on the former Kendall College site that the commission had deemed historically significant. At the Sept. 11 meeting, the Council overturned that denial, allowing the developer Smithfield to proceed with the demolition.

At the Council meeting, Judy Fiske, 2319 Sherman Ave., displayed one of the green "R1" yard signs neighbors had displayed on their lawns throughout the controversy. She said the neighbors had demonstrated "incredible support" for single-family zoning for the property and ultimately succeeded in preventing the "zoning sprawl" they feared - the pressure from various institutions and from the redevelopment of downtown Evanston to let higher-density development spread into their community.

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Ad-Hoc Committee Advocates Public Discussion of New Civic Center Site

"It may get wrapped up soon," Alderman Elizabeth Tisdahl, 7th Ward, said, "but it's taken much longer than anybody thought it would, and I've turned out to be wrong in my estimates every time."

Mr. Kennedy said he has heard speculation that the aldermen are considering a site in the Research Park area downtown. Other speculation has centered on now-vacant industrial sites on the City's west side.

Friends of the Civic Center has generally opposed relocating the headquarters of City government from its current location in the former Marywood Academy building at 2100 Ridge Ave.

But Mr. Kennedy said that since the aldermen have repeatedly rejected renovating the existing building, he is not suggesting reopening the renovation debate at this point.

Alderman Delores Holmes, 5th Ward, said, "There's been a lot of public input on the Civic Center already." She added that she believes it would be difficult to solicit public comment on a new site because of the need to negotiate real-estate purchases in confidence.

Ald. Tisdahl said, "I don't see how it would be feasible to be more public than we have been. When you get down to picking a site, there are all sorts of financial reasons not to have it be part of a public process."

The Civic Center Committee held its most recent executive session meeting on Aug. 28. Another session is scheduled for Oct. 16.

Mr. Kennedy said he appreciates what he sees as a shift in views among the aldermen. Previously they seemed to prefer tearing down the building but now, he believes, they may be interested in trying to save it for another use, perhaps as residential condominiums.

Council Debates New Provisions in Landlord-Tenant Ordinance

By Bill Smith

In the aftermath of the Rogers Park fire that killed six children in a candle-lit apartment with no electric service, three Evanston aldermen have urged City staff to develop an ordinance requiring utility companies or landlords to tell the City when gas or electric service is cut off.

"I think the law department could make a public safety argument that they [the utilities] should turn over this information," Alderman Melissa Wynne, 3rd Ward, said at the City Council meeting Sept. 11.

The utilities argue that customer privacy rules bar them from disclosing service cutoffs.

Alderman Ann Rainey, 8th Ward, said she had asked the City manager about adding such a rule immediately after the fire and was still waiting for a response nearly a week later.

She added that the Rogers Park Builders Group, what she described as a very responsible group of landlords in the Chicago neighborhood, has proposed that Chicago require landlords of multi-family residential buildings to read utility meters in their buildings at least every other month to make sure tenants' service has not been cut off.

She said that in the case of the Marshfield fire, "the property owner, the janitor, the social worker and the kids' tutor all knew they'd had no electricity since May."

"Reporting needs to be required," said Ms. Rainey. "We require landlords to return security deposits; I don't know why we couldn't require that landlords inspect the meters."

Paula Haynes, executive director of the City's Human Relations Commission, said that when a lease makes landlords responsible for paying for utilities, the tenants generally quickly complain to the City about any shutoff. However, when tenants are required to pay utility costs and fail to do so, they generally try to hide that fact from the landlord and the City, because the lack of utility service would constitute a breach of their rental agreement.

The aldermen also reviewed changes proposed by staff to the City's residential landlord-tenant ordinance.

As now written, the ordinance requires landlords to give tenants a 30-day period to stop behaving in ways that disturb their neighbors before seeking to have them evicted.

Because some landlords have complained that some tenants would clean up their act for the 30-day period and then start disturbing the peace again, City staff have proposed allowing landlords to terminate a lease for such violations on 30 days' notice - eliminating the opportunity for the tenant to correct the behavior and stay.

Assistant Corporation Counsel Ellen Szymanski said that when the City has taken landlords to court for operating a nuisance building, the landlords at times have complained that the existing provision created a loophole that made it impossible for them to evict problem tenants.

But Alderman Edmund Moran said the propsed provision "puts a lot of discretion in the landlord's hand and tips the balance too far against the tenant."

Alderman Steve Bernstein said, "At the end of the day, the court is going to make the decision anyway, but I think we should give the tenant a chance to cure their behavior."

The aldermen decided to continue the discussion of the ordinance changes at a future meeting.

New Recommendation on Bees

By Bill Smith

They can be here, but only under the strictest of terms, if City Council adopts the most recent recommendation about hive separation from the City's Human Services Committee. The committee rejected an outright ban on beekeeping in Evanston but on a split vote Sept. 6 recommended to the City Council a measure that would have much the same effect.

At the suggestion of Alderman Lionel Jean-Baptiste, 2nd Ward, who had supported a complete ban, aldermen voted to amend a proposed ordinance to increase from 15 to 25 feet the minimum required separation of a beehive from any property line.

Since the vast majority of lots in Evanston are no more than 50 feet wide, most Evanstonians would be effectively barred from keeping bees if the full City Council adopts that proposal.

"I think 25 feet is ridiculous," Alderman Steven Bernstein, 4th Ward, said. "It would prohibit almost everybody in town."

The aldermen rejected a proposal from Alderman Elizabeth Tisdahl, 7th Ward, to permit keeping bees if immediate neighbors consented, although supporters of that measure noted that the City lets neighbors vote on alley-paving projects, the installation of speed-control humps on the street and whether front-yard fences will be permitted on a block.

"I think that activity [beekeeping] doesn't work in a compact neighborhood," Alderman Edmund Moran, 6th Ward, said. Ald. Moran, who backed a complete ban, added, "I'm not bothered by bees, but it's asking too much of people to be tolerant of beekeeping."

During a discussion of whether existing hives might be grandfathered in as being permitted under the regulation, the City's health director, Jay Terry, noted that despite the five months of debate over the issue, the City has only been made aware of two residents who currently keep bees in the City.

One has had no complaints from neighbors. The proposed installation of the other hive sparked the swarm of protest from neighbors that led to the calls for regulation.

Alderman Delores Holmes, 5th Ward, who supported the 25-foot rule, said, "We have an obligation to make people feel safe, but you can't ban bees. They're going to be there, even if we ban beekeeping."

A National Safety Council study mentioned during the committee's debate estimates that nationwide 66 people die each year of stings from hornets, wasps and bees, compared to 47 killed by lightning and 32 who die of dog bites.

By comparison 3,369 die in fires, 11,920 are killed in assaults using firearms and 44,757 die in motor-vehicle accidents.

Street-Sweeping Schedules May Offer Nighttime Relief

By Bill Smith

Evanston residents awakened in the middle of the night by the street-sweeping machine rolling down theirblock may get some relief soon.

Public Works Director David Jennings told aldermen at a Budget Policy Committee meeting Monday night that he plans to ask them to approve switching street sweeping operations from a mix of nights and days to an all-daytime program.

Alderman Elizabeth Tisdahl, 7th Ward, said she would really like to see the change. She said she has received complaints from residents of the Seventh Ward - especially those who live on corners and so are awakened by the cleaning of two streets.

"It's a big problem, too, for young mothers with newborn babies who aren't getting much sleep anyway," Ald. Tisdahl said.

The City now spends on average $169 per year for each mile of roadway swept. It cleans some streets as often as 18 times a year, and others, where parking is especially tight, as few as four times a year.

Mr. Jennings said the current scheduling creates downtime for crews between the night and day shifts and costs the City about $30,000 annually in overtime charges.

He said that, if the City Council approves the schedule change as part of a larger review of streets and sanitation programs next month, he hopes to implement it next spring.

The street-sweeping program is just a small slice of the public works budget, which overall amounts to 36 percent of total City spending.

Mr. Jennings said that in other municipalities, public works functions consume from a quarter to half of all municipal spending.

A study released Monday by the Chicago-based Civic Federation, however, says the typical northeastern Illinois municipality spent 14 percent of its budget on public works.

A big factor in the size of Evanston's public works spending is that it provides water service not just for its own 75,000 residents, but for 275,000 other people in several other municipalities.

"We're the second largest water producer in the state, after Chicago," Mr. Jenning said, "and treat over 16 billion gallons of water a year."

Plea in Gresham Shooting

Twenty-year-old Antoine Hill agreed to a prison term of 18 years and a plea of second-degree murder rather than going to trial in the shooting death of 22-year-old Robert Gresham at the Keg on Grove Street in the summer of 2005. Sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 23.

The killing of Mr. Gresham, which was the 39th death by violence of an Evanston youth in the past two decades, was a catalyst in the formation of the Evanston Youth Initiative. That initiative, formed by concerned residents, political and civic leaders, seeks to develop programs to engage youth.

Solar Panel Regulations Will Not Yet See Light of Day

By Bill Smith

Several environmental activists from the Network for Evanston's Future have persuaded the City Council to send proposed new solar panel regulations back to committee for further discussion.

The environmentalists, including Andrew Fisher, 1580 Sherman Ave., said at the Sept. 11 Council meeting that the new rules, developed by the Plan Commission, place too much emphasis on shielding the panels from view, at the expense of their effectiveness.

Barbara Wallace, 1203 Maple Ave.. said the over-emphasis on aesthetic considerations in the ordinance could effectively stop people from putting solar panels on their homes and that would run counter to Evanston's strategic plan goal of becoming a "green" city.

Alderman Melissa Wynne, 3rd Ward, suggested that the complaints about the new ordinance were based on misinformation but suggested deferring action on the rules to get more information from City staff.

Alderman Steve Bernstein, 4th Ward, said more input is needed from the City's Environment Board and Energy Commission and that it "seems inappropriate for the Plan Commission to be determining the extent and nature" of the solar panels.