Candidates for Evanston mayor and City Council debated what the next four years, and the next 20 years, should look like in the city at a forum hosted at the former site of Second Church of Christ on Feb. 9.
The city’s proposal for a new zoning ordinance, called Envision Evanston, quickly emerged as a lightning-rod topic for the candidates. The zoning proposal would permit increased density in the city, even outside the downtown, according to previous reporting.
At the forum, most candidates balked at a proposal to allow four-unit buildings to be built on lots currently designated for single-family homes. That provision is outlined in Envision Evanston 2045, for which the timeline for implementation has recently been dramatically extended.
In the April 1 election, all but one of the seats on the City Council is being contested, and challenger Jeff Boarini is taking on incumbent Mayor Daniel Biss for the mayoral seat.
The Envision Evanston proposal has turned into a political talking point for many of the candidates vying for a seat on the City Council, as some residents have protested its proposals to increase housing density. At the forum, 8th Ward City Councilmember Devon Reid was the sole candidate to publicly advocate for more housing to be built in that ward.
During the portion of the forum dedicated to mayoral candidates, Boarini threw political punches at Biss’s record in his opening remarks.
“I’m running because Evanston deserves a mayor who focuses solely on Evanston and is not focused on his next political job,” Boarini said, perhaps poking at Biss’s previous roles as a state senator and representative, as well his bid for governor in 2018.
Boarini also referenced the emergency evacuation of elderly Black residents from an apartment complex that left 24 without a permanent home after the city’s inspectors deemed the property unsafe to live in. “How do you justify your silence on that, and what can Black residents and other residents believe in your leadership to protect them from displacement?” Boarini asked.
Biss said, “Those buildings were not unsafe because of anything the city did, but they were, unfortunately, so unsafe the city had to take action to keep the residents safe.”
“This is an unimaginable situation that the residents are being put through, and so we have a responsibility to do what we can to help them,” Biss added. “We’ve provided a lot of support, rental assistance for two years for most residents, moving costs, storage costs, working with Connections for the Homeless and other entities across the community to help the residents being displaced find other housing, most of them in Evanston. And so this situation was created by a third party that’s not part of the city.”
For his question, Biss took a lighter note.
“What’s your favorite thing to do in Evanston on a Sunday afternoon?” Biss asked Boarini.
“It would be take a nap,” Boarini said, adding in other leisurely activities.
In regards to Envision Evanston, Boarini said the city should have taken more time than the year-long campaign for Envision Evanston so far. He also took a jab at Biss for his comments to another Evanston news publication, when he told it in December that it was “immoral” to extend Envision Evanston’s timeline.
“You have to get all the right people into the room at the beginning of any project, and that’s how you achieve success, particularly the people who might object to what you’re doing,” Boarini said when asked how he would implement Envision Evanston. “Everyone who is a stakeholder must be involved, and so that’s where I would have begun the process.”
Biss said his comments to the other publication were “stupid” and they “generated a headline that left an impression that I really regret.”
Biss fleshed out his comments at the forum:
“It’s a mistake to go too fast because we need to get it right, because it’s complicated, because there’s a lot of different neighborhoods in Northwestern (sic), I mean Evanston, including some near Northwestern, where there’s certain considerations, and others where there aren’t. And each of those neighborhoods needs to have a different set of eyes on this,” Biss said.
“At the same time, it’s a mistake to go too slow… what we’re trying to achieve here is important,” Biss continued. “I want an Evanston where District 65 teachers can afford to live, where our police officers, our civil servants, our nurses who work in the hospital, can afford to live. And that requires dealing with our affordability crisis across all income levels, and it requires a diversity of types of housing stock.”
The comprehensive plan also has language in it to help the city achieve its climate goals, revitalize downtown and to freeze or lower property taxes, Biss said.
City Council seats
Candidates for City Council seats, with the exception of 9th Ward City Councilmember Juan Geracaris, who is in the only uncontested race, also took questions on Envision Evanston.
In the 1st Ward, City Councilmember Clare Kelly is running for re-election against Stephen Hackney. Kelly has previously spoken against Envision Evanston’s process as being “rushed and reckless.”
In the 2nd Ward, incumbent City Councilmember Krissie Harris is facing off against Jacqueline Mendoza and Darlene Cannon.
In the 3rd Ward, current City Councilmember Melissa Wynne is not running for re-election. Three candidates, Gennifer Geer, John Kennedy and Shawn Iles are competing for that seat. Iles did not attend the forum.
In the 4th ward, incumbent City Councilmember Jonathan Nieuwsma is running unopposed on the ballot, but resident Margaret Welch is running a write-in campaign.
“We need to try something different downtown,” Welch said of booming developments which could greatly increase density to Evanston. “I moved to Evanston because I wanted to live in a suburb.”
“It’s not a dog whistle to say you want to live in a suburb,” Welch continued. “I happen to know a Black woman who told me once that (they) grew up here and said, ‘We don’t go south (of) Howard (Street).’ It’s a little less dense, it’s a little less noisy, it’s a little more safe.”
Nieuwsma said downtown Evanston is heading in the right direction, and cited vacancy numbers from before and after the pandemic. “I think encouraging residential development downtown is one very important thing we can do to bring back some vitality to our downtown,” he said.
In the 5th ward, candidates Carlis Sutton and incumbent Bobby Burns spoke about the incoming Foster School, affordable housing, and the emergency removal of residents from an apartment complex at 2018 Wesley Avenue.
In the 6th Ward, candidate Candance Chow is challenging incumbent City Councilmember Tom Suffredin. The two did not speak to each other in a single session as the other candidates had, however, because of scheduling conflicts.
Unlike much of Evanston, the sixth ward does not have a Metra or CTA Purple Line “L” train station stop. Suffredin said that should be taken into consideration when the city considers developments involving parking lots, as much of the ward’s residents drive.
“It’s critical that the needs of areas of Evanston like Northwest Evanston are considered because it’s unrealistic for people up here to be dependent on transit and be able to do all the things that people do in their cars,” Suffredin said.
In the 7th Ward, City Councilmember Eleanor Revelle is not seeking re-election. Parielle Davis and Kerry Alexander Mundy Williams are running against each other for the seat.
Mundy Williams said single-family homeowners felt blindsided by Envision Evanston and its zoning proposal.
“I think there are places where we can add density, but they need to be looked at very seriously. And I think that the single family homeowners who chose that lifestyle and pay property taxes and worked hard to buy their homes deserve to be heard when they say that they don’t want something else happening in their neighborhood,” Mundy Williams said.
For a potential removal of single family zoning, Davis said the city should adopt that policy with the particular needs that Evanston has.
“(Zoning) decisions impact what we have the property taxes to do with regards to affordable housing, but also what we can do with regards to transportation and making public transit more accessible,” Davis said.
In the 8th Ward, City Councilmember Devon Reid is running against the former chair of the city’s Land Use Commission, Matt Rodgers. Rodgers did not attend the forum.
“Unlike my colleagues on the north end of town, they (business owners) are actually calling for more density,” Reid said.
“They want to see more housing units along Howard Street, because they know that the more people that live on Howard Street, and the more that we can diversify the income demographics of our area, the more that their businesses will be supported, the better that Howard Street will be, the safer Howard Street will be.”
Still, Reid was skeptical as to whether an overhaul of the entire city’s zoning code would be the “panacea and the cure for all our affordable housing issues.”
