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Now happening in Tinley (although Tinley residents have a point about how the vote was done. The Yonkers people didnt have a leg to stand on)
Suburbs Daily Southtown Southtown News
Tinley residents protest apartment plans
Apartment protest
Tinley Park residents crowded into a conference room to view the proceedings during Tuesday's Village Board meeting. (Mike Nolan, Daily Southtown)
Mike Nolan
Daily Southtown
A firestorm of protest over a proposed Tinley Park housing development that will target low- and moderate-income renters has further stoked complaints of a lack of transparency on the part of village government.
During a sometimes raucous Village Board meeting Tuesday, an overflow crowd of close to 300 peppered the board with questions about The Reserve, a 47-unit apartment building planned for the northeast corner of Oak Park Avenue and 183rd Street, chiding the mayor and trustees for keeping residents in the dark about the project.
Trustee Jacob Vandenberg said he would seek to have the village's Plan Commission delay a vote scheduled for its Thursday meeting that could give final approval to the three-story, $16.5 million development. That meeting is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. at Village Hall.
Residents said they were unaware of the project's existence until seeing a recent Daily Southtown report from a late-January village Plan Commission meeting during which the project was discussed and tentatively endorsed by commission members.
In the last few days, using social media, a group called Citizens of Tinley Park 3,000 residents opposed to the project, with members saying that apart from The Reserve, they hope the effort will open a new and lasting channel of communication between taxpayers and elected officials.
"We're here in the spirit of actually being helpful," Matt Coughlin, an organizer of the group, told board members.
With the actual council chambers filled to capacity, dozens more people crowded into the nearby Kallsen Conference Center, where the proceedings were displayed on a large screen.
Apartment protest
A rendering showing The Reserve apartment development planned for the northeast corner of 183rd Street and Oak Park Avenue in Tinley Park. (Courtesy of Michael Nolan)
A Columbus, Ohio-based nonprofit, Buckeye Community Hope Foundation, submitted plans for the project in October, although preliminary discussions regarding the housing development between Buckeye and the village preceded that by several months.
Coughlin chastised board members for a "lack of governmental transparency," particularly worrisome due to the "volatile nature" of the housing project.
"Something is broken and it needs to be fixed," he said.
Other residents said the village already has an abundance of rental housing, and some said it could hurt already depressed resale values in the Eagle's Nest town home development directly north and east of the proposed apartments.
The Reserve was deemed by the Plan Commission to be in compliance with village criteria covering development in the village's Legacy District, which takes in much of the Oak Park Avenue business district and adjacent areas. Development codes, adopted in 2009, were intended, in part, to spur development in the village's downtown area.
Because the Buckeye project conforms to the code, and the developer isn't seeking any variances or incentives from the Village Board, The Reserve won't be voted on by that board. That was upsetting to some trustees, including Vandenberg, who said he and fellow elected officials are "essentially cut out of the process."
"I don't believe the interests of the residents of Tinley Park are served," he said.
He and Trustee Michael Pannitto urged the board to consider a moratorium on new development within the Legacy District until the codes governing development there can be modified.
Vandenberg said he didn't "believe there is a need for a large influx of affordable housing in our community."
Buckeye had previously told the village it identified a need in Tinley Park for additional housing of this type, and that The Reserve would offer a mix of one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments, with monthly rents ranging from $400 to $1,500. Similar to other rental properties, Buckeye performs background checks on potential tenants, including looking at their credit history and whether they have a criminal background.
In addition to Ohio, Buckeye has housing projects in Indiana, Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia, with pending projects in Pennsylvania, South Carolina and in Illinois, in downstate Pontiac.
In October, the Illinois Housing Development Authority awarded Buckeye more than $1.2 million in Low-Income Housing Tax Credits for the Tinley Park project. Housing developers such as Buckeye sell those credits, which buyers can use to offset their own federal income tax obligation, and money raised helps pay to build the development.
Mike Carpenter, who lives near where The Reserve would be built, told the board he paid a premium when he bought his home in the village more than 40 years ago.
"I do not want low-income housing 21/2 to 3 blocks from my house," he said.
Another longtime resident, Charlie Smith, said agencies such as Together We Cope are already at work meeting the needs of low-income residents, and, "I don't need Ohio to tell us what our needs are.
"I don't see anybody sitting on our sidewalks asking for money," he said.
Resident Joe Shourek asked board members to "do the right thing" and "don't let this happen."
"We do not need buildings like this in our community," he said.
The problem, trustees said, is their hands are tied because they don't have a direct vote on whether the project goes forward.
"We don't have the right to tell them (Buckeye) they can't build here," Trustee Brian Maher said, noting the village could expose itself to a lawsuit if the project were blocked at this point in the process.
Asked by one resident where the trustees stood if they did have a say, Maher said that he was ambivalent.
"I can take it or leave it," he said.
Mayor Dave Seaman said that, "as of this day, I couldn't tell you" whether he supports the project.
David Petroni, Buckeye's vice president of business development, told board members that his group had "precisely complied" with the process and wouldn't brook any "interference."
"We have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars," he said.
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