Affordable Housing
Naperville:
History:
In 2006 leaders from St. Thomas Apostle Catholic Church
began doing small group listening sessions and
individual meetings with parishioners to learn about
their concerns and interest for their community.
After 100s of conversations it became apparent that
people were concerned about the loss of affordable
modest homes that they once had the opportunity to, buy
but their children can not afford. Modest homes were
town down and replaced with very high end homes ranging
from $500,000 to over $1 million.
A team of leaders formed to research this issue further
and soon others from neighboring congregations got
involved.
Working with Business and Professional People for
Public Interest (BPI) leaders organized several
presentations to educate more people on this issue,
including city staff. Mayor and Council scheduled a
formal workshop and heard the presentation as well.
Leaders called and met with each of the councilmember
and mayor to discuss the issue further.
Mayor and Council voted to make affordable housing a
priority for their Strategic Plan Initiative for 2007,
2008 and 2009.
The City of Naperville voted to expand a Condominium
Conversion Ordinance from a technical ordinance on fire
sprinklers, to one about affordable housing. This
Ordinance, which passed in February of 2008, includes
waiving fees for developers if there is an agreement
from developers to build a certain percentage of
affordable homes.
Before any further action would be taken the City voted
to hire an outside consultant to conduct a
comprehensive study on the need for affordable housing
in Naperville.
Update:
The study is now complete and on May
5th the Mayor and Council vote to accept
the study and direct staff to present strategies
and policies to address this issues. DuPage
United has been working with city staff, fair housing
commission, and have met with all the candidates and
some of the new council members on this
issue.
Below is a link to the city council material:
http://naperville.granicus.com/ViewPublisher.php?view_id=2
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