Editorial: Mayor Johnson is picking a fight with Lincoln Park no matter what he says

Former Mayor Lori Lightfoot tried hard to end Chicago’s time-honored tradition of aldermen holding veto power over development in their wards. She was unable to do so before failing to win reelection after a single term.

Her successor Brandon Johnson has pledged as a general matter to uphold the long-standing practice. So it’s an interesting development, to say the least, that the Johnson administration seems to be taking a blowtorch to the unwritten rule, at least when it comes to Lincoln Park. The Plan Commission last week approved two high-rise apartments proposed by mega-developer Sterling Bay over the objections of 32nd Ward Ald. Scott Waguespack, in whose ward the towers are slated to be built.

Waguespack says he doesn’t oppose apartments on the site, at 1840 N. Marcey St, just east of the North Branch of the Chicago River. For the alderman, the project is too dense. Sterling Bay’s plans are for 615 units and 275 parking spaces. The two buildings would rise 275 feet and 195 feet. Waguespack wants mid-rise structures.

The Johnson administration supports the plans as they are, particularly Sterling Bay’s commitment to offer 124 units of affordable housing in the project, as distinct from buying off that requirement as most developers do.

So, at least as we write, there’s a standoff here. Asked Thursday about the dispute, Johnson denied that he was overruling the alderman on a critical project in his own ward. “We’re having conversations,” he told reporters. “This is not some contentious, fake spat or rift between my presentation and others. This is about having a real conversation about how we have the vibrancy in this city so we can recover.”

Seems like a rift to us. Waguespack will oppose this plan when it comes to the City Council’s Zoning Committee. “The community is saying: If you do this one, and you allow these towers to start going in there, you just basically destroy the fabric of the community,” he said.

Hanging over this controversy is the fact that this site lies on the doorstep of Lincoln Yards, Sterling Bay’s already-approved, massive multi-use project that has been stalled for years now due to lack of financing. Portions of the 53-acre site have been bulldozed, leaving a moribund and blighted area between two of the densest and most affluent parts of the city, Lincoln Park and Bucktown.

While Sterling Bay pushes for close to max density on the relatively bite-sized parcel nearby, it’s made no apparent progress on the main event. Approved in the last months of Rahm Emanuel’s mayoralty and heralded as the creation of a brand new neighborhood, Lincoln Yards’ appealing infrastructure additions, including major public transit improvements, especially around the chaotic Clybourn Avenue Metra stop, that were to come with the development haven’t happened. Who knows if or when they will?

So, we understand Waguespack’s concerns. Lots more people and cars is likely to make an already-congested area even more so.

We also understand the administration’s desire both to jump-start development in a city that needs more housing and to add to the inventory of affordable units. It would seem there’s room for compromise here, and if the density can be reduced in response to the community’s understandable concerns, Sterling Bay should keep its commitment to make 20% of the new number of units affordable.

More broadly, though, what exactly is Johnson’s view on aldermanic prerogative in the wake of this clear breach of that custom? Is this a surreptitious attempt to achieve what Lightfoot tried to do explicitly and unsuccessfully?

Would the mayor be doing this to a community he felt was more politically supportive of him? The 32nd Ward overwhelmingly favored Paul Vallas for mayor over Johnson in 2023. Nearly two-thirds of voters in that ward opposed the Johnson-backed referendum in March to quadruple the tax on real estate sales over $1.5 million in order to fund programs to combat homelessness, one of the most embarrassing political defeats for any mayor in recent Chicago history.

Johnson all but declared Waguespack’s opposition to Sterling Bay’s two buildings racist.

“The anti-business, quite frankly, the anti-Black and -brown policies that have created so much harm in this city, that day is over,” he said in the context of his support for the project.

Waguespack, of course, isn’t trying to eliminate an affordable-housing component of whatever the final project looks like. If he were, that would be a stance one could plausibly ascribe to a desire to keep people of modest means out of the neighborhood. That the mayor would insinuate such a motive is offensive.

Editorial: Abuse of aldermanic prerogative courses through Burke, Madigan cases. Reform is the remedy.

We’re growing used to Johnson framing virtually every issue in Chicago through a racial lens, but a mayor who fashions himself a collaborator and uniter only promotes division when he points such fingers. At the end of the day, residents of a neighborhood should be allowed to question the density of huge projects that will affect their day-to-day lives more than anyone else in this city without being accused of bigotry.

Our view on aldermanic prerogative continues to be that the views of aldermen on development in their wards should be respected and heeded. They know far better what is best for their constituents than the mayor’s office does. That should not be a categorical right, though. Aldermanic opposition can be unreasonable, and when it is, mayors and fellow council members are within their rights to think about the city as a whole and act against the wishes of the local alderman.

Waguespack’s position in this case doesn’t come close to crossing that line of unreasonableness. The mayor and his planning chief, Ciere Boatright, should seek compromise with Waguespack. Sterling Bay should do the same — and, while the firm is at it, update the public on the status of Lincoln Yards. We assume no news on that project is bad news. Boatright hinted at the Plan Commission that these apartment buildings could help give Lincoln Yards momentum.

Is that so, Sterling Bay? If so, how? And in what time frame?

Johnson, too, owes the public, and the City Council, an explanation of how he views aldermanic prerogative. If he’s comes around to Lightfoot’s view, say so. If not, how does his treatment of the 32nd Ward in this case jibe with his stated support for the concept that aldermen know best when it comes to their own wards?

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