The Chicago Plan Commission approved Thursday the framework for a plan to create hundreds of affordable homes in rapidly gentrifying Pilsen.
Increasing rents and property values over the past two decades forced thousands of residents to leave the predominantly Mexican immigrant neighborhood, but the city purchased last year for $12 million roughly 6 acres at West 18th and South Peoria streets, and envisions hundreds of mid-rise and high-rise units, many affordable, as well as for-sale homes, rising on the now-vacant land.
“This site is the largest undeveloped site in the Pilsen neighborhood,” said James Harris, supervising planner with the city’s Department of Planning and Development.
City officials hired consultant AECOM and Chicago-based design firms UrbanWorks and Koo Architecture to lead the planning effort, which included a series of public meetings starting last September.
The message from the Pilsen community was clear, Harris told commission members.
Hundreds attended the meetings, and most wanted more affordable units on the plot between 18th Street and 16th Street, once an industrial smelting facility, as well as larger units for big families. The city boosted the units called for, from about 250 to a maximum of 432, and will push potential developers to maximize the number of affordable units, including some with three or four bedrooms.
The plan also calls for a park, including a dog park, performance spaces, a playlot and plazas, all joined to the eastern end of El Paseo Trail, the proposed 4.2-mile path connecting Pilsen to the Southwest Side neighborhood of Little Village.
25th Ward Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez, a progressive elected in 2019, supports the framework, according to a staff member who attended the Plan Commission meeting.
The exact mix of units and building designs won’t be known until officials choose a developer and approve its final plan, but Commissioner of the Department of Housing and Plan Commission member Marisa Novara said she supports the community’s push to maximize the amount of affordable housing.
“It was quite refreshing,” she said. “We have the appetite to do that and have already done it in other gentrifying neighborhoods. We don’t go around spending $12 million lightly.”
