Keeping the peace
Plan to rezone Grand Avenue is for the best, for both residents and industry

Our Views

11/23/05 Chicago Journal

For more than a year now, the Industrial Council of Near West Chicago has been pushing to keep residential construction off the south side of Grand Avenue, between Ashland and Western. The manufacturers they represent worry that if large condo buildings go up on that stretch, residents will complain about the noise, dust, and traffic from the neighboring Kinzie Corridor—and the existing manufacturing companies will be pressured to move or close and jobs will be lost.

The worries are real. People who move into luxury condos adjacent to manufacturing districts don’t typically consider, before they buy, that they’ll be roused from bed before dawn by heavy machinery. Or that their asthma will be aggravated by the dust and chemicals used there. But once the condos are built and the residents move in, angry calls to the alderman about the noise and the debris and the traffic commence. Aldermen, depending on the residents’ votes for re-election, are more likely to encourage industry to move than suggest that these "urban pioneers" live elsewhere.

That’s why we support the rezoning of the south side of Grand from manufacturing (with a provision for residential) to commercial. This zoning would allow for storefronts as well as heavy industry to exist on that stretch, and act as a one-block buffer between the industrial district of the Kinzie Corridor on to the south and residential on the north side of Grand. It would also prevent prospective homebuyers from being scammed into thinking they’re living in a quiet, uneventful neighborhood.

Some residents living north of Grand have pushed to allow residential on both sides of Grand, figuring that making the street a vibrant, pedestrian stretch with condos, restaurants and boutiques will help both their property values and their quality of life. But Grand west of Ashland will probably never be a bustling retail district, considering that there is already plenty of opportunity for retail development along nearby Chicago Avenue, which already has the infrastructure for shops and restaurants.

Keeping condos off the south side of Grand, but allowing them on the north side, seems a reasonable compromise between residents and industry. We encourage Alderman Ocasio and the city to push this rezoning through