Lifelong West Side resident Karen Castleberry joined dozens of other community members for an open house hosted by Ald. Monique Scott (24th Ward) and the city’s Department of Planning and Development (DPD) on Thursday night. UCAN Center in North Lawndale was the site for the meeting where the city introduced the developers for the pilot phase of Mayor Brandon Johnson’s Missing Middle Infill Housing initiative.
“I live over in Homan Square. I own property in Homan Square and in K-Town, so I’ve been invested in this community for a long time. I think this is really, really exciting. You can hear the excitement in the air. You can feel it,” Castleberry said. “So I think this is really, really good for the community as a whole. I just hope that everything that is done is made affordable for existing residents.”
Johnson’s Missing Middle Infill Housing initiative is described as a community improvement program designed to reverse decades of systemic disinvestment in Chicago communities on the South and West sides. Between 2000 and 2020, according to the city, Chicago lost over a quarter million Black residents; some neighborhoods lost as much as 50 percent of their population. This loss, coupled with disinvestment, has resulted in a concentration of vacant lots and “missing” middle-density housing in impoverished neighborhoods.
Middle-density homes are townhouses, two- to six-flats, and courtyard buildings that once were owned by families on the South and West Sides but were lost to depopulation and disinvestment, according to the city.
Financing for the housing comes from Johnson’s $1.25 billion Housing and Economic Development Bond. Roughly $75 million is allocated towards the Missing Middle initiative over the next five years. The city says, together with the Cook County Land Bank, they own roughly 10,000 vacant residential parcels primarily located on the West and South sides.
“We’ve seen North Lawndale, like so many other South and West Side communities, filled with vacant lots and missed opportunities. But today, this Missing Middle initiative is a chance to change that,” Bonita Harrison, CEO of Chicago-based development company Sunshine Management, said during the open house. Her firm is one of the chosen developers.
“It is a chance to sell homes that working families can actually afford, open up new pathways for small, community-based developers to lead the charge, and ensure that North Lawndale’s future is shaped by the people who live here, not just that outside interest,” Harrison added.
Last month, the city revealed the five developers selected to redevelop the 44 city-owned lots into one- to six-unit residential buildings in North Lawndale. The lots are divided into six “clusters” designated with the letters A through E. According to the city’s website, a developer for cluster B will be announced in the summer as proposals are still under review.
The developers that were selected include Alteza Group LLC; the Black-owned Westside Community Group with their Trumbull Collective; Citizens Building a Better Community (CBBC); the Black-owned Beauty for Ashes Developers LLC; and the Black-owned Sunshine Management.
The developers are required to sell the units at no more than 140% of the area median income (AMI). For Chicago, that’s an annual income of $109,900 for a household of one.
The mayor’s Missing Middle housing initiative is targeting areas on the South and West Sides to repopulate and stabilize the population in these areas, according to Peter Strazzabosco with the DPD. He added the initiative also aims to create ownership for those in the community and give them the option to rent out units with the developments they own.
According to the National League of Cities, the lack of missing middle housing for low- to middle-income households is due to these residential building types being “illegal or difficult to build since the mid-1940s due to single-family zoning and building requirements for mid- to high-rise apartment buildings.” One solution to this is incentivizing small-scale developers to affordable housing for households with earned income.
Johnson’s Missing Middle initiative incentivizes developers by selling vacant lots to them for $1 and providing up to $150,000 in site preparation and construction assistance for each housing unit.
Harrison described the subsidies as “a big deal,” adding that the government usually doesn’t subsidize houses that are for sale.
“So right now, the cost of a three-unit, just the hard cost, is $1.2 million for me to build it,” Harrison said. “If the appraisers and the after-repair value is only $400,000 or $500,000, why would we build a house that we’re going to have a deficit and we’re going to lose $700,000?”
Brian Hacker, project manager for the Missing Middle initiative in North Lawndale, said the goal of the program is to “incentivize private development” and encourage homeownership for those in the community.
“We are partnering with developers and then those developers have to make all of these properties for sale,” Hacker said. “So the developers can’t hold on to any of their buildings and rent them out, but what they can do is sell, like, a two flat to a family, and then that family can rent out one of the units.”
Asked how the city plans to ensure that ownership of the developments stays within the community, Strazzabosco said refusing to sell to a buyer is discrimination.
“Obviously, we want to make it accessible to folks who are on the West Side and want to stay here,” Hacker said. “But again, these are private developments, and like any other kind of opportunity, they’re just going to sell it to the qualified buyers.”
Matthew Howery, 38, who works at the North Lawndale-based nonprofit New Covenant Community Development Corporation, said he hopes that the initiative leads to ownership without gentrification.
“You do worry. Are all these gonna really be affordable housing? Because, what we have seen on the West side or South Side was, ‘We’re gonna do these affordable housing here and there.’ Then all of a sudden they become mixed units, where only so many are affordable and other ones are not.”
Harrison added what she finds most difficult in the process is trying to find those who may not have time to attend community meetings to learn about such opportunities to connect them to resources.
“I’ve definitely been having calls and conversations. Because this is probably the most critical part, trying to meet them in their community. Like for myself, I remember I had a kid at 15 [years old]. I’m working, I’m going to school, so I never showed up at community meetings,” Harrison said. “I didn’t have time. So the people who really need the services, they don’t have the time to show up to the community meetings. So how do we meet them where they are?”
Ald. Scott said the Missing Middle initiative will bring families and investment back to the North Lawndale area without the fear of pricing out those who live there.
“Displacement wouldn’t be fair to any resident or myself. I’ve lived in this community for 53 years, and I think that bridging the gap between the community, having a community for all, is what’s important to me,” Scott told The TRiiBE during the community event. “Everybody should be able to live in one community, regardless of the income that you have. You build housing that will include all.”
The city expects to break ground on the North Lawndale developments by May.
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