ZONING – Dogma Debunked!

by Jeff Smith, Evanston Sixth Ward

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“There is no short cut to good zoning in any community through blindly accepting what has been done for another community. The only safe path is a thorough, open-minded examination of the facts in each community as to existing uses, existing densities, and heights of buildings, the customs of the people, and the trend of affairs. In every city there are citizens and organizations having in their possession valuable knowledge of local conditions. These have a large contribution to make.” — U.S. Dept. of Commerce, A Zoning Primer (1922).

 

Evanstonians should know that data does not support — and in fact contradicts — Envision Evanston 2045 (“EE2045”)’s core theses about growth and density. We’ve built far more housing since our last municipal plan than most realize. The price and rent increases supposedly driving the upzoning push have occurred during a building boom that has also driven growth in vehicle ownership. We need to recalibrate.

 

Basic housing, population and transportation facts are essential for residents to participate meaningfully in comprehensive land use planning and any consequent rezoning. Similar context was fundamental to all our previous planning. Since mid-2023 I’ve tried to compile that, expecting to work off well-curated city data. Evanston spends millions on computer hardware and software and can produce a map showing every fire hydrant.

 

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Over 18 months, city responses to numerous FOIA requests directed at trends in housing, vehicle ownership (because parking matters) and city studies on costs or adverse impacts of additional density or population growth in Evanston, revealed that, sadly, Evanston doesn’t actually track housing, construction or transportation. It took a year to get even partial datasets of vehicle registrations. As to historic data on housing — new units completed annually, housing demolished or destroyed, vacant units — the city had no such compilations, no raw data, not even a list of the planned developments it has approved.

 

“The public records requested,” they told me, “do not exist.” As to impact studies on growth or density, “we’ve never done that.”

 

So, realize: Envision Evanston, from launch, has been flying disconnected from factual basis for any grounded policy recommendations about density. Nor did the EE2045 process develop such data. A year in, a slicker, glossier second draft still lacks these fundamentals. Obviously, a data vacuum also hamstrings residents, preventing meaningful review or comment on policy that should be fact-driven. Instead, the public was left sputtering over unsupported buzz-speak assuring that “more housing choices” (translation: bigger buildings everywhere) would be a magic wand.

 

A determined dig, however, turns up the facts the city doesn’t collect or analyze. What emerges contradicts the thrust of EE2045.

 

Start with housing. A list of actual construction speaks volumes. Bottom line? At least 5,600 new housing units have been built in Evanston since 1996.

 

Downtown Evanston Encore GIF animation

Planned Developments & Other Housing 1996-2024 2-21-25

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This is huge. Evanston’s 2000 Plan, referencing our last detailed survey, documented about 30,500 housing units in 1996. Even assuming 600 lost since then to demolition or consolidation, Evanston should have over 35,500 units now. That means a 15%-18% increase in housing stock — over a period when Evanston’s population hasn’t kept pace. This increase doesn’t even include many smaller projects. Also, nearly 800 approved units currently await construction.

 

A 2007 Teska report called 1996-2006 the “greatest building boom in downtown Evanston’s history.” However, in terms of Evanston housing, the following 11 years, even with the Great Recession’s screeching halt in construction, eclipsed that. Note, 98% of new residential construction was multi-unit, squeezing single-family homeowners’ percentage of housing stock even smaller.

 

Moreover, this development boom has increased the number of vehicles in Evanston. Residents near transit own vehicles to a degree that refutes eliminating parking requirements. Solo driving remains Evanston’s top commuting mode. Lower vehicle ownership near transit is explained by smaller units and households, by student residency (especially downtown) and by likely undercounts. So, although isolated projects serve discrete submarkets of residents who don’t own cars, most households do drive. Evanston’s “transit-oriented density” hasn’t reduced overall car ownership. Quite the opposite.

 

This all has major planning ramifications. Evanston has a lot more housing than presented. The added units, even at a low estimate of 1.5 persons each (current average household size is 2.2), could accommodate another 7,500 folks, so the “undersupply” argument doesn’t wash. Second, during all this housing density growth, home prices, rents and taxes have only risen.

Yet storefronts sit empty. City and schools’ approach “structural deficits.” Downtown can’t support a McDonald’s or Burger King. “More crowded” manifestly has not created “more affordable” or “more prosperous,” just more unequal. Worst, we don’t know how Evanston’s massive growth in housing density has impacted our vehicle census, transit use or other aspects of city business or quality of life — because Evanston doesn’t even study that. The ignorance is willful.

 

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Downtown Evanston Smores on the Square

EE2045’s basic tenets obviously need a do-over. But the meta red flag is this: knowing how much housing we have, where and when it was built, how many units were lost, how many cars park where, who the markets are, how much housing demand is from relocating Evanstonians v. from Chicago or out-of-state, how much is student-driven and how all this affects prices/rents, should have been done before planning even started. It’s Square One.

 

The shame isn’t just that we aren’t using the tools Evanston planners had the good sense to consult even decades ago, or that EE2045’s base case about housing is grossly inaccurate. It’s that the race to rezone began without even trying to first compile such information, make it public, and proceed from there. That disconnect from facts both characterizes and invalidates the entire Envision Evanston saga.

 

To start erecting a building from the top down, without a foundation, practically defines arbitrary and capricious. To say that the city literally doesn’t know what it’s doing would be kind. Evanstonians deserve a re-set now, not more repackaging. It’s on mayor and council to do that.

 

Jeff Smith, Sixth Ward