Brainstorming begins on area housing needs
March 14, 2007
By KATE R. HOULIHAN Staff Writer

Local affordable housing advocates came before the City Council on Tuesday to talk strategy for how Naperville can grow its affordable housing stock.

"In our various conversations with council members, we invariably came to the question: What can we do in Naperville?" said Mike Ryder, a representative of the community group DuPage United. "Granted, Naperville is largely built out, which makes the situation more difficult, but definitely not impossible, to solve. The situation isn't hopeless and things can be done."

Elected officials labeled affordable housing as a strategic goal for fiscal 2007. Tuesday's focus was largely on solutions, with a look at creative ideas other suburbs have implemented to increase affordable housing stock.

Susannah Levine, senior policy analyst for the Chicago-based Business and Professional People for the Public Interest, told the council that some double-income households in the city have anywhere from a $200,000 to $300,000 gap between what their income will allow for an affordable home and what Naperville's median home costs.
"All these double-income households are struggling to afford housing in Naperville," Levine said.

In 2005, the median sales price for a single-family home in DuPage County was the highest in Illinois. Affordable housing is defined as housing for which the occupant is paying no more than 30 percent of his or her income for gross housing costs, including utilities.

Levine said misconceptions about affordable housing driving down property values or looking cheap is inherently incorrect, with other cities designing affordable houses to look almost identical to their more expensive counterpart.

Local examples cited by Levine included Highland Park, which has an inclusionary housing ordinance on the books that says any development greater than five units must include 20 percent moderately priced housing, and Lake Forest, with an ad hoc housing committee.

However, City Manager Peter Burchard claimed Naperville is one of the most affordable places to live in Illinois and that in actuality the city has twice the amount of affordable housing required by the state. He said the state won't acknowledge errors in formal calculations and have not responded to city inquiries to rectify the data.
"The councils have been dedicated to an existing land use plan that calls for diversified housing," Burchard said. "We're anxious (to fix this) because if there's a housing problem you've got to make sure the correct data is on the table."

Contact Kate Houlihan at KHOULIHAN@SCN1.COM or 630-416-5224.