South Side Projects Commit To Affordable Housing, But Gentrification Concerns Remain

As billions of dollars are invested into developments on Chicago’s South Side — especially since construction on the Obama Presidential Center has gotten underway — community organizers are pushing for affordable housing and community investment to ensure longtime South Side residents aren’t displaced in the process of building new developments in historically disinvested neighborhoods.

Six years in the making, city officials and the development team for Bronzeville Lakefront broke ground on the infrastructure for the redevelopment project at the former Michael Reese Hospital on March 29. The $3.8B project, which is supported by $60M in city-funded infrastructure, will bring more than 5,000 residences — 1,000 of which will be affordable — along with retail spaces, a multicultural community center and parks to the neighborhood.

“This tremendous investment will not only have an impact and redound to the benefit of people here in this neighborhood, but really across our city, and frankly put this property back on the tax rolls to help generate revenue to create wealth for the people who will be working here that they take with them whatever neighborhood that they live in, and then that wealth gets regenerated within those communities,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said at the groundbreaking event. “That is, to me, the best of what we do when we partner with the private sector to lift up these kinds of economic development opportunities.”

The development team said it will invest $25M into neighborhood schools, reserve 10% of retail spaces for local and disinvested business owners at rents 20% lower than the market rate and bring 10,000 full-time jobs and 9,000 construction jobs during the development process. The project team will work with 65% minority- and women-owned businesses and ensure 12% of apprenticeship hours for the project go to Bronzeville residents.

“This ensures that working residents and families can not only remain in Bronzeville as the fortunes rise, but they can also stay here, specifically, and be closely located to the thousands of job opportunities that this development will bring,” Lightfoot said. “I look forward to seeing this development rise, and with it, the fortunes of this community, the fortunes of the residents, with a focus on equity.”

Zakiyyah S. Muhammad, a member of the Michael Reese Advisory Committee, advocated for the development to increase its affordable housing allocation from 15% to 20%.

“When I came to Chicago in 1957, I lived two blocks away from the Michael Reese site,” Muhammad said. “People were living on affordable incomes, and so people want to come back now that the community’s coming up.”

Muhammad said final negotiations landed on 20% affordable, much of which will be for senior housing, with no limit, so the percentage of affordable housing can continue to be negotiated in the future.

“I would feel better if it had been more, but now I see that there's opportunities written into the books where it can increase as time goes by,” Muhammad told Bisnow.

Another development underway, Woodlawn Central, will be walkable to the future Obama Presidential Center. The nearly $900M development will have 870 homes, ranging from affordable to market-rate, along with a hotel, a black-box theater, and retail and hospitality spaces, focused on Black-owned businesses.

“We're excited about being a place that isn't just placemaking, but we're actually opening the conversation to the community and saying what is it that you need, versus placing things in the community that we believe is needed, and that's paramount,” Transwestern Midwest Capital Markets Group Vice President JC Griffin said. “I think it's important to identify and recognize the fact that this is ultimately a development that's been derived from a lot of community feedback and interaction.”

The Apostolic Church of God in Woodlawn is sponsoring the minority-led development. Lead developer J. Byron Brazier, whose father is the pastor of the church, is working with Transwestern as its CRE services provider. Griffin said the team has worked with the Obama Foundation, the YMCA, Mount Carmel High School, the University of Chicago and community organizations like the Woodlawn Network for input in the development.

“The big thing here is the fact that we're not selling the land. We’re optioning the land up for ground lease,” Griffin said. “Whenever you do a ground lease, it's ultimately retaining ownership of the land, and you're renting that specific space out to a tenant or user or an occupier. In this case, that means that the dollars that are going to be received from the lease will be recycled into the community via the church, and the church will be able to then further invest into Woodlawn Central and the expansion.”

Recognizing that Woodlawn’s population is 90% Black, Griffin emphasized the importance of supporting the culture and traditions of the community in the development, including providing space for retailers that are inclusive and representative of the neighborhood. As a community-led development, Griffin said the displacement of longtime residents that often occurs when an area is gentrifying can be reduced.

“Gentrification is one of those things that we've talked about throughout the last five or 10 years. It's been a huge issue definitely as of late because of the fact that we've seen a lot of developments take place in other parts of the country, and there is an effect to that, and the effect is ultimately the potential displacement of people,” Griffin said. “But I have always argued that these things are not synonyms. You can have gentrification, and you can mitigate displacement by being exactly what Woodlawn Central is doing, which is leaning into the community. This is a community-driven development, not a principal developer development. This isn't a group of affluent developers who have disposable income or investors’ money and is saying this is what we would like the community to look like, and it is completely different than what the community is. Rather, it is the community saying this is what we want to look like, and this is how we want to present ourselves to the world, and we need to help doing that.”

Still, community organizers have remained concerned about gentrification and have been fighting to keep affordable housing options in Woodlawn as developers see investment opportunities near the Obama Presidential Center. In 2020, community organizers fought for the passage of the Woodlawn Housing Preservation Ordinance that requires 30% of housing built on a quarter of the city-owned vacant lots in the neighborhood — a total of 52 — to be made affordable to very low-income residents.

“The concern was that the city, developers, all these folks had their own vision that did not include the people living here,” said Savannah Brown, a housing organizer for Southside Together Organizing for Power, or STOP.

More than two years later, Brown said fewer than half of the 52 lots have been set aside for affordable housing. Meanwhile, Woodlawn’s most expensive real estate transaction took place in March, with a house selling for $1.2M.

“A lot of people are concerned with being priced out. The rent is going up. I think the lowest number I’ve ever heard is the increase was by $200, which, realistically, if you're on a fixed income, or if you're middle working class, or on the poverty line, where are you supposed to come up with $200 on a monthly basis if your income is what it is?” said Porsché Patrice, a housing organizer with STOP. “It's been known to be affordable here, so the fact that this is happening, a lot of people, they're leaving, or they're concerned about what their stay looks like in Woodlawn once the Obama Center is completed.”

While property values going up seemingly benefits homeowners in the neighborhoods, it doesn’t mean they can afford increased property taxes, and eventual homeownership may not become a realistic option for renters. 

“Folks that have been living there that may have limited incomes, while their property value may go up, and everyone presumes that's a great thing, the challenge is everyone can't pay the taxes,  or there are other constraints that people experience. More importantly, folks that don't own their place, the rents go up, so then they are priced out,” said Stacey Sutton, associate professor in the Department of Urban Planning and Policy at the University of Illinois Chicago. “ A neighborhood that was once affordable, folks that may not even live there, but they are of the same socioeconomic status of folks that live there currently, they can't move to that neighborhood, so that neighborhood then becomes inaccessible in a way that it wasn't for so many years.”

STOP and other community organizations have continued to push for affordable housing and community benefits agreements to extend to other nearby neighborhoods like South Shore. This February, the organizers were able to get a referendum question on the February ballot about affordable housing at 63rd Street and Blackstone Avenue in Woodlawn, which 91% of voters approved, Patrice said. 

“I feel like even with that in itself, it speaks to a need for housing and a desire from the community that just can't be ignored,” Patrice said.