Lake Forest searching for affordable housing solution

Lake Forest searching for affordable housing solution
By Sharon Stangenes
Copyright © 2010, Chicago Tribune
February 7, 2010
http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/realestate/advice/ct-mre-0131-lake-forest-affordable-restat20100203,0,5414664.story


Carla Gardner, 72, raised three children and has lived all of her adult life on Chicago's North Shore. A homemaker, Gardner was widowed in her late 30s. Ten years later, when the family's five-store business closed, Gardner sold the family home and went to work.

For the last 12 years, she has lived in a subsidized one-bedroom apartment, part of the Neighborhood Homes Without Walls program, a collaboration of the city of Lake Forest, the Lake Forest-Lake Bluff Seniors Center and Lake Forest Place, a Presbyterian Homes senior-living development.

"There is nothing" in her price range, says Gardner of market-rate suburban housing. "They all want $1,200 to $1,500 a month."

Lake Forest is about to help more residents like Gardner. While other communities worry about too much affordable housing thanks to a rising tide of foreclosures, Lake Forest is trying to put some back into its housing mix.

A proposal to build 16 two- and three-bedroom homes, 15 of which will be rented for less than $1,000 a month, began a public review and approval process last month as a first step toward consideration by the Lake Forest City Council.

"It helps our seniors who are often desperate. It opens options for schoolteachers and for people who work at the hospital so they don't have to drive 50 miles and spend all their income on commuting," says Thomas Morsch Jr., a Lake Forest alderman and proponent of the proposed Settler's Green project.

Founded more than a century ago by some of Chicago's wealthiest families, this city of 21,000 residents remains one of the region's most affluent and desirable communities. Perched on prime lakefront property, the town's mix of gracious homes, wide lawns, architecturally historic downtown and array of private schools combine to give Lake Forest a movie-set aura.

Yet several years ago local officials realized Lake Forest — and the nearby suburbs of Highland Park, Northbrook, Deerfield and Highwood — were losing housing for a wide range of people.

Though known for its mansions, Lake Forest historically has had a mix of worker cottages as well as housing for shopkeepers, schoolteachers and other mid-income professionals and service workers, says Peter Coutant, the city's senior planner.

Concern for those living on fixed incomes led to construction of the Senior Cottage Development, composed of five rental homes, in 2003. But even as the first residents moved in, the housing boom had pushed the city's home prices nearly 66 percent above 1994 levels.

The recession slowed increases in property values, but with an estimated median household income that is more than double the national number and a median home value estimated at $900,000, Lake Forest is too expensive for most who work there to live there.

"There is a huge gap between workers and the housing," says Morsch. "Sixty-nine percent of the (five suburb) community-area work force earns less than $50,000 a year, but only 13 percent of local housing stock is affordable for that income."

Morsch, who grew up in Lake Forest, says income and housing diversity has contributed to the suburb's quality of life and he wants to see that continue. But as the region has become a corporate center with such firms as Abbott Laboratories, Walgreen Co. and Tenneco Inc., local housing and traffic patterns are becoming more complex.

"We've lost some key staff because they didn't want to live so far from where they work," says Leslie Chapman, vice president for business affairs for Lake Forest College, a four-year liberal arts college of 1,400 students.

She cites the case of a college official who moved to Indianapolis "to work for Butler University because the housing was closer and more affordable."

Over the years, the college has tried to bridge the gap between Lake Forest's high living standard and faculty salaries. The school has 30 subsidized rental units, most on or near the college campus, for nontenured teachers and to recruit faculty newcomers. It offers a second mortgage program to help faculty members, and an employer-assisted home purchase program for support staff and newcomers meeting certain key guidelines.

Lake Forest Hospital also subsidizes a handful of rental units on the hospital grounds. They are for staffers new to the area or moderate-income employees who want to live close to work or have transportation issues, says Mathew Koschmann, vice president of external affairs and business development.

"The majority of employees do not live in Lake Forest," he said.

"It is important for us to have good response times for employees in times of emergency," he said, noting the hospital's required 30-minute response time for some staffers is increasingly difficult in traffic-clogged Lake County.

Affordable housing emerged as an issue within the last several years and was "acutely noticeable" in 2008 when gas prices skyrocketed, Koschmann says.

In early 2005, Lake Forest adopted an affordable housing plan soon after the state passed legislation with a goal of making 10 percent of all housing affordable to those making 60 percent or less of area median income.

With only 5 percent of its housing in that category, Lake Forest adopted a plan that Robin Snyderman, vice president of community development for the Metropolitan Planning Council, calls "a model for other communities." It is an "impressive" illustration of "good stewardship," says Snyderman.

The plan calls for a housing committee, a demolition tax with a portion of the revenues going to a trust fund to be used for affordable housing, a goal of 15 percent of affordable units in all new developments or redevelopments, expedited or reduced cost of permit fees for affordable projects, and promotion of employer-assisted housing. It aims to increase the city's affordable options and ensure those homes blend architecturally and aesthetically with existing housing and are close to public transportation, shopping and parks.

In September, Lake Forest won $756,000 in federal low-income tax credits from the Illinois Housing Development Authority for Settler's Green. The tax credits are expected to generate more than $5.1 million in private equity to help build the rentals on city-donated property at Everett and Telegraph roads. The housing will be close to retail and a Metra station.

The project faces close scrutiny as it goes through the approval process, however. In March 2009, about 100 residents filled the city council chambers to protest transferring city-owned property for possible development of affordable housing. Some residents were not happy with the site, according to published accounts, because it would increase traffic congestion. Others expressed concerns the city was rushing the project. Questions were asked about what impact "affordable housing" would have on neighboring property values and who would live in the eight duplex buildings.

Officials said there is little evidence the housing would affect property values.

"I am certain that the final development will be a source of pride for the community — well-managed, well-designed, and home to seniors, key workers and other valued households," said then-Mayor Michael Rummel in support of Settler's Green in March. Rummel, whose term ended last spring, had been one of five North Shore mayors who in 2007 reached out to the business community to try to find housing solutions for more area workers.

As to the future residents of the proposed Settler's Green rental homes, Marge Burda, director of the Lake Forest-Lake Bluff Senior Center, says, "People don't realize it is their neighbor" who will live there.

"It's the people they see every day, especially in this economic time," she says, citing a 2007 survey that found 250 households of seniors 55 and older qualified for the housing.