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McCormick / Devon / North Shore Channel
Metropolitan Water Reclamation District Property

Status
Ordinance passed October 31, 2007.

Description
Aldermanic application to rezone property owned by the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District. Alderman Stone proposes to change the zoning classification from B1-1 Neighborhood Shopping District, B3-1 Community Shopping District and RT4 Residential Two-Flat and Multi-Unit District to RS2 Residential Single-Unit (Detached House) District.

Citizens for Responsible Development opposes this proposed change in zoning. Ald. Stone introduced this ordinance for the express purpose of reducing the appraised value of the MWRD property in order to give the owners of the Lincoln Village Theaters an advantage in their lease negotiations with the MWRD. This is an outrageous abuse of aldermanic authority and Ald. Stone's position on the Zoning Committee. Ald. Stone has no business using zoning to interfere with contract negotiations in which he has no part. It seems unlikely that this application will ever be heard in committee. If it is, it will be a major embarassment to Ald. Stone and the 50th Ward.

Ald. Stone explains his reasons for the proposed change in zoning:
(From Ald. Stone's campaign website)

"I have recently proposed to down zone the area surrounding the Lincoln Village Theater in an effort to save those businesses. You may have noticed concrete blocks at the entrance of the parking lot to the Lincoln Village Theater along Devon Avenue. These concrete blocks block off the parking lot and leave the shopping center with only one entrance for egress and ingress.

"However, the Water Reclamation District proposes to lease the land and under state law, the District must receive at least 10% of the current appraised value of $8 million for the lease. The current users of the parking lot, Lincoln Village Theater, Lincoln Village Car Wash and other businesses, who pay $40,000 in lease fees, can not afford to pay 20 times what they are currently paying for parking purposes.

"Although I have pleaded with the District, the District contends they have no choice under state law to accept less than the minimum 10% for the lease. Unfortunately, their decision will lead to the destruction of many local businesses.

"Therefore, on July 19th I introduced legislation that down-zoned the District property in the hope that the appraisal value of the property will be reduced, making the property more accessible and affordable to local Chicago businesses. I did not make this decision lightly, rather I thought of what was best for the residents, the businesses and the community before taking this action. If you have any questions about the down- zoning issue please feel free to call my office."

MWRD Commissioner Terry O'Brien tells his side of the story:
(Transcript of Terry O'Brien's recent appearance on CAN-TV show North Town News Magazine)

O'Brien: Lincoln Village, the parking lot that's now been barricaded off right behind the theater, the scenario there was that we received a complaint from the alderman with regards to that particular lot not being maintained. He was getting a lot of complaints from his constituents with regards to major potholes, even craters, I guess, how he framed it. So, what we did as the owner of the property is we approached the tenant who leased that land from us, and we told him that part of the responsibility with the lease with us is to maintain the property to the level of not being a nuisance to the residents in the area. And they refused to do anything with regards to filling those potholes and making the surface smooth so our law department took action as far as canceling his lease. He had a lease until about 2010. With that, the lot was repaired. And ... with district land, we have to deal with a state statute, which is state law, and how we deal with our properties and the way of dealing with our properties is we have to competitively bid it when there's private interest in those lands. What happens is when we have an interested party to use our property, they come in they first tell us that they're interested, what they're planning to do with the land. And then we run it through our engineering department, maintenance and operations department and R&D department in what we call a technical review to see if what they're interested in is something that would fit there. They then have to go out and solicit two appraisals. We as an agency commission a third appraisal. Well, when they went out and solicited their appraisals, they told their appraisers that what they wanted to use the property for was for parking lots. So, as an agency we can't determine that. So, we go out whenever we have our property appraised for the best possible use. And what their appraisers came up with ...

Host: ‘Cause you're obligated by the state to do the best you can with the property ...

O'Brien: Not only that, we can't determine that these people are going to be the successful bidders. We may have somebody else that comes in and wants it to maybe put a shopping mall on it.

Host: So, not playing favorites ...

O'Brien: No. So, they went out and I think they had appraisals of ... one was like $500,000; the other was $600,000 of which we take 10% on an annual basis for rental. We went out and had an appraisal done. It came back at $8 million. So, quite a differential with regards to what they wanted and what we did. We ended up going to court. The judge ruled in our favor because he saw what we have to do as far as following the state statute with regards to not playing the side of what a person wants to do with that property because its an open, competitive bid process. So, that's why we've got to have it appraised for the best use. In turn, what the annual rent turns out to be with the $8 million is $800,000 a year. And it's not an unforeseen number along that north shore channel. Our properties have just escalated with regards to appreciation for use. The alderman told me that the gentleman who had the property originally has some property that abuts right up here against the property that we've closed off. And he's asking ... and his property's only a third the size of ours and he's asking $4 million for it, my understanding. So it's not unreasonable, it's not an unreasonable figure with regards to the $8 million. We sold land to the public schools there at Bryn Mawr and Kedzie, two acres, and that's going back probably about ten years ago, and that was about a million-four.

Host: Oh, for that super high school?

O'Brien: Yeah, North Side Academy Prep I think it's called. So, it's not an unusual number per acre with regards to the value of the land now.