Chicago Journal-Don't fence Them In

Everything about Denis's Vulich's 41-year-old family business is big and strapping. Vulich runs a forklift company in the Kinzie Industrial Corridor called Chicago Lift Truck, so his days are consumed with the ebb and flow of hundreds of pieces of heavy machinery. Much maneuvering occurs on two sizeable parking lots that fill almost an entire block at Fulton and Lake. Some days, Vulich says, finding room for all the gargantaun pieces of equipment that come through his property is a task on scale with mountain-moving.

So Vulich was somewhat aghast when he learned of the city's grand plans to pretty up the pavement in his almost exclusively industrial neighborhood. The relatively new, mayorally blessed beautification guidelines call for ornamental fencing and islands of greenspace in all commercial lots of any significance. Trouble is, says Vulich, the rules don't distinguish between, say, a millinery boutique in Lincoln Park and an earthmoving company in neighborhood strictly zoned manufacturing, which would ordinarily call for different aesthetics.

"It would cost me almost $75,000 to do the wrought-iron fencing with the medians and the seven-foot setbacks," says a woeful Vulich. "And I would lose almost a third of each parking lot."

Mayor Richard Daley proposed the beautification guidelines five years ago, after a life-altering trip to the verdant byways of Paris. The ordinance passed council quickly, as no one saw much of a problem with sprucing up the city with more greenery, and went into effect gradually, so it didn't attract much attention at first.

Only recently, when a January 1, 2004 deadline for enforcement came around, did business owners in the Kinzie Industrial Corridor really take notice of the ordinance, which calls for wrought-iron fencing no higher than five feet tall, landscaped islands with trees every 25 feet, and grassy setbacks of seven feet from the property line.

The city's blurring of retail and industrial troubles Cari Murray, the fourth-generation owner of Mellish and Murray, a sheet-metal fabrication and strobe light manufacturing plant.

"It doesn't make sense," says Murray. "We're not bringing tourists into our industrial zone. We're here to create jobs and ship out product. We're competing with Mexico, India, and China. These people don't have beautiful wrought iron fences and green roofs."

Alderman Walter Burnett, whose 27th Ward includes much of the Kinzie Corridor, says that he made the mistake of voting for the ordinance back in 2000, not realizing the impact it would have on heavy industry. He was thinking instead of how previous beautification efforts had livened up the mixed-used district along Randolph Street in the West Loop, luring downtowners to its restaurants and shops.

"We had good intentions," says Burnett. But once the city actually started enforcing the law, industry leaders were quick to complain. "That's when we realized, 'Hey, we made a mistake."

Since February, the Industrial Council of Nearwest Chicago has held two tension-packed meetings on the new guidelines, with representatives from the city Planning Department and Kinzie Corridor businesses in attendance.

Joyce Shanahan, executive director of ICNC, attributes the trouble to an oversight and bad communication. The city simply didn't think to make special provisions for manufacturing districts, she supposes, and when the law went into effect, a few gung-ho inspectors took note of the loophole and focused their enforcement efforts on heavy industry.

"Like a lot of legislation, it wasn't thought through," says Shanahan. "The aldermen thought 'It's such a great common effort, we're going to beautify the city,' but the public wasn't made aware of it, and the impact on the industrial area wasn't considered."

Shanahan says she thinks there's room for compromise, but thus far the city doesn't seem to be budging. In the meantime, the ICNC has encouraged Kinzie Corridor businessfolk to write letters to their aldermen and the city's zoning department requesting that the ordinance be modified to fit the specific needs of industrial areas, and include some form of financing or improvement grants from the city.

"It's often a matter of laying off somebody to comply," says Shanahan. "We want to meet them halfway. Instead of a seven foot setback, could you consider two or three? And the fencing shouldn't have height requirements."

Calls regarding the ordinance to Pete Scales, spokesman for the city's Department of Planning and Development, were not returned by presstime.

Though enforcement generally has been light until the city and businesses can iron out their differences, Reliable Plating at Ashland and Lake has already been walloped by the new requirements. Jim Greenwell, the owner of the 85-year-old company, says that his business was singled out as a "test case" back when the ordinance was approved. As a result, he had to spend two years and $70,000 to redo his parking lot to comply with the greenspace setbacks, plant trees and shrubs, and replace a workaday fence with a fancier one. His business lost about a third of its parking in the process, and the upkeep of the property is an added expense for his business that's not going to go away.

The city's swift and rigid hand caught him unawares. "You're in shock and then you're kind of angry," he says. "You're disgusted with the whole thing. This supposed to be the city that works, well, it's not working for the industrial community."

He had to add drainage, lighting, and lines on pavement, and rip out new pavement when city inspectors decided at the last minute they wanted a gate removed that the alderman had already approved.

"It's time to invoke the voice of reason," Greenwell says. "With the economy the way it is, people don't have the money to spend."

In the meantime, Vulich is bracing for a hit. "This is probably coming at the worst possible time," he says. "I feel that the city isn't recognizing the struggles manufacturing and industrial companies going through right now. "We've heard that they're willing to make a change, but we've not heard anything confirming that or even saying that they will consider it."