Broadway Community Forum at St. Ita brings out the haters - News-Star
BY: BY BOB ZULEY - 24 September 2025
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About 300 people attended a public meeting on Broadway upzoning at St. Ita Catholic Church on Broadway where they were met by sophomoric heckling by a small group of activists. Photos by Bob Zuley
Experts present information blindly rejected by upzoning proponents
It was really a saddening event. Community organizers Edgewater Residents For Responsible Development [ERRD] gathered together a team of local experts to present the factual downside of the City’s plan to upzone a 2.6-mile stretch of the Broadway corridor in Uptown and Edgewater.
The community forum took place before a standing-room-only crowd estimated at about 300 people in the basement assembly hall of St. Ita Catholic Church, 5500 N. Broadway. They were instead met by sophomoric heckling, vitriolic hatred, agism, and verbal personal threats requiring on-site security to intervene and deescalate the young zealots that had infiltrated the audience.
Thankfully the organizers of the event had the foresight to have security on-hand. Increasingly common are these public displays of hatred displayed in public forums where people can spew venom with little consequence. And violence is oft a very real result of such vitriol. This newspaper counted 17 troublemakers in the crowd of 300, who on multiple occasions tried to shout down speakers and ridicule other attendees.
Meanwhile, Ald. Leni ManaaHoppenworth [48th] gathered with her housing/transportation advocates at Burke’s Public House, 5401 N. Broadway.
ERRD organizer Pat Sharkey began by explaining that their compromise ‘Win-Win Roadmap for Broadway’ proposal met 75% of the city’s demands. However, they retained the right to maintain community and aldermanic input on potential developments in the Broadway corridor and crossstreets and not just acquiesce to the developers demands.
“The City has sidestepped the standard, community-centered planning process in Edgewater. The DPD [Chicago Dept. of Planning and Development] failed to conduct a Comprehensive Corridor Plan for the proposed upzoning of Broadway – something that’s normally expected for zoning changes of this scale,” per a ERRD handout available online.
ERRD presenter Jack Markowski, a former Commissioner of the Chicago Dept. of Housing, explained that ERRD planning is following up on 20 years of community planning accomplished by previous aldermen Mary Ann Smith and Harry Osterman. It is the Mayor, DPD, and Ald. ManaaHoppenworth that are upending policy-making by making this a developer-driven process.
Markowski explained that the enviable goal of achieving affordable housing is unrealistic under present economic and political conditions. New Broadway affordable units built by the private market will likely be limited to studio and 1-bedroom units, not 2-bedroom or larger units required for families. The newly approved Bickerdike affordable housing building set for 5833 N. Broadway was only accomplished because of governmental subsidies from the city and state.
Its 90-units in the 11- story building will be 100% affordable. However it cost $73,000,000 to build or $800,000-plus per unit. Claiming that a unit costing $800,000 to build is ‘affordable’ is ridiculous. It was financed by a $3.3 million bank loan – 5% of total cost and $70 million in city and state taxpayer subsidies. It also received bargain-rate land costs on the former city-owned 48th Ward Streets and Sanitation site.
Similar sweetheart building deals will not be duplicated by private developers. People seeking “affordable” sites will be eligible with income up to the 60% of the Area Median Income [AMI]. Maximum incomes are 1 person $50,400; 2 person $57,600; 3 person, $64,800, and up to $77,700 for 5 people. At market-rate, developer-built affordable housing sites, studio rent will be approx. $1,224, 1BR at $1,301, 2BR at $1,557, and 3BR at $1,794.
Mindy Turbov, a former Deputy Commissioner at the Chicago Dept. of Housing and Director of HUD’s Choice Neighborhood Program delved into the effect upzoning will have on the rental market.
Developers will likely build 2-3 bedroom units to maximize profits. An increase in higher rents in new buildings will drive up rental prices in existing units. In the last 15 years, Uptown rents have more than doubled concurrently with 2,000 new units under the same upzoning now proposed for Edgewater. Upzoning will drive up property taxes which will be passed on to tenants. Homeowners will see tax increases, as will small businesses who will see major increases following property acquisitions.
One major effect of upzoning will be the loss of small buildings with small businesses and naturally-occurring affordable housing on upper floors. New developments will have higher rental rates leading to vacant storefronts or national chains, medical offices, or other professional services.
To date, we’ve yet to see the DPD come close to assembling a panel of equivalent experts to factually present the upside of upzoning – just a pipedream of new midrise buildings, significantly higher density, ‘affordable’ rents, and rainbow-colored unicorns frolicking on Broadway. In fact, even getting DPD to convene informative presentations on their Broadway Upzoning Framework appears to be beyond their capabilities.
Mayor Brandon Johnson supports the upzoning plan as he sees it as a remedy to balance the books in his cash-strapped city. Yet Johnson fled an Andersonville event in June when Tribune reporter Jake Sheridan posed a question on the Broadway upzoning framework. And Ald. Manaa-Hoppenworth appears hapless as she has cut dialogue with ERRD and sided with Mayor Johnson and DPD on destroying Broadway as it is today. She has reversed by fiat the time-tested work accomplished by then-Aldermen Mary Ann Smith and Harry Osterman in preserving the unique characteristics of Broadway and Edgewater.
Rookie Ald. Manaa-Hoppenworth may not understand that compromise in political leadership is a complex process of mutual concession that builds trust, and that collaboration is necessary for effective governance. Cutting off dialogue with community representatives who represent a large swath of her ward is also bad for retention. Those who present a rational alternative shouldn’t be shunned.
The proponents of City Hall’s framework to upzone the Broadway Corridor have resorted to deliberately spreading disinformation about ERRD’s commitment to affordable housing and diversity in the community. This newspaper has declined to reprint the vacuous claims made in those fliers.
Between Devon and Foster avenues, Broadway would be upzoned to B3-5. However, the west side of Broadway between Balmoral and Foster avenues would be upzoned to B3-3. The Zoning Committee is now expected to take up the matter at its Oct. 14 meeting. For more information on the ERRD ‘Win-Win Roadmap for Broadway in Edgewater,’ visit saveedgewater.com.