6000 W Touhy Ave., Or, Are Chicago Neighborhoods Indeed For Sale?
As a Chicago resident, my understanding has always been that Aldermen of any ward in Chicago possess what’s called an “aldermanic prerogative”, the supreme right as it were, to determine what shall be built within their ward and what shall not. Eric Zorn from the Chicago Tribune rightfully points out that aldermanic prerogative is a very useful instrument when it comes to sorting out small zoning matters rather than burden the entire Chicago City Council with local issues such as curb cuts, variances and the like.
That being said, the saga surrounding 6000 W Touhy in Chicago’s North Edgebrook neighborhood continues to unfold behind the scenes, and it seems as though the unwritten rule of aldermanic prerogative has been in suspension for Alderman Brian Doherty (41st Ward). During numerous meetings over the last year with residents of the small subdivision north of Touhy Ave., consisting of Meade, McVicker, and Sherwin Avenues, Ald. Doherty has given the residents the impression that he is siding with them on the issue of the proposed 300-car parking garage. The residents strictly oppose the construction of this garage for a variety of reasons. Ald. Doherty has been balancing a tightrope trying to avoid alienating the residents, as well as the owner of 6000 W Touhy Ave., Gus Tountas, who is attempting to build the 300-car garage to accommodate the parking needs of a new health club in this building.
The issue here is this: A 300-car garage will cause a complete traffic nightmare for this tiny subdivision, because the only legitimate ingress/egress points to the garage would be off of Meade Ave. An exit/entry point to this property from Center Point Road (east end of 6000 W Touhy Ave.) would mean having to utilize an easement that is leased by Mr. Tountas. Not a reliable solution for the amount of traffic that we would be talking about with a 300-car garage. To make matters worse, the traffic light at the Meade/Touhy Ave. intersection has a 2-3 minute red/20 second green cycle which would cause a perpetual traffic backup on Meade Ave.
Nevertheless, the latest status of the application for the garage permit on the City of Chicago website is shown as follows:
This is more than puzzling, because it appears that since the most recent 41st Ward Zoning Advisory Board meeting in early June (at which Mr. Tountas didn’t show up), Mr. Tountas appears to have made quite a few inroads on his way to securing a complete permit for the construction of the garage. In other words, while the residents have been discussing this matter for more than a year with their Alderman and the Zoning Advisory Board, Mr. Tountas has been working behind the scene (not with the community) to make this monstrosity happen. Meanwhile, Brian Nadig from the Reporter & Journal Nadig Newspapers reported on June 28, 2008 in Volume 44, Number 26, on page 1:
Doherty said Thursday that he was not notified of several permit applications for the site despite his request that a hold be placed on issuing permits for the property. “I had to call (the city’s zoning and planning departments),” Doherty said. “I’m very disappointed with the city administration.”
So Ald. Doherty is disappointed, huh? But what exactly happened to aldermanic prerogative, in this case? Or is this not really about aldermanic prerogative, rather Ald. Doherty not being straightforward with his constituents? I’m just asking, you know, because something in this story doesn’t add up. In the interim, it appears as though Mr. Tountas’ project is moving forward because his application for a permit for the health club was filed before an ordinance to rezone the site was filed, hence the site would not be subject to B1 zoning requirements. Again, thanks Mr. Doherty, while we’ve been discussing the downzoning issue with you and the Zoning Advisory Board month after month after month, Mr. Tountas was able to sneak in his application behind our backs which in essence means that the residents have been wasting their collective time pleading their case with you and the Advisory Board.
We live in Chicago, and I understand that. But Dan Mihalopoulos’, Robert Becker’s and Darnell Little’s Tribune piece really hits home for me now.
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Tags: 60646, Blog, Chicago, Edgebrook, Home, Neighborhood, Zoning
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Geez, you people in “The Patch” are just starting to get wise that Doherty is a sham? The residents of the 7100 block of Melvina having been fighting with Doherty (and being blatantly ignored by Doherty) over the damage and hazard the stop light at Melvina and Touhy is causing to the North Edgebrook neighborhood since 1995!
Well, here’s the thing “Later for Lunch”, just in case you weren’t aware of this: The proposed 300-car parking garage behind the building at 6000 W Touhy will not get built after all (as far as we, the residents of the “patch” know). Call me naive, but I’d like to think that Ald. Doherty and the 41st Ward Zoning Advisory Board had something to do with that, so let’s give them some credit for it. Add to that the relentless pressure that the residents of the “patch” exerted on the decision makers. And finally, consider that the dismal shape our economy is currently in, may have had something to do with the fact that a 300-car garage could not be financially justified. Either way, the building at 6000 W Touhy has had a foreclosure lawsuit filed against it, recently. I think we’re past the subject of the 300-car garage.
The issue of the traffic light at Melvina and Touhy, I’m roughly familiar with. But kindly give us the details of what’s been going on with that recently.
Sounds like you’ve never heard of your little piece of the world called the Patch. It’s a term going back to the 50′s when the Patch was still surrounded on three sides by native prairie and we had to go through it to get to the Little League field where CostCo is now. It just seemed like you were going through a patch. Kids would say they lived in the Patch.
Well it’s hard to keep informed as to what’s going on in North Edgebrook since there’s no community web site or newsletter. I quit reading the Nadig newspaper because of how poorly they print the facts. It seems to me Glen Nadig picks and chooses what part of the truth he wants to tell.
A little history, in 1995 just somehow Melvina residents were the last to know about the stoplight that was going to be installed at Melvina, literally learning about it when it was installed. Through the Freedom of Information Act I have learned that the project had been in the pipe for quite some time. When it was installed both the residents of Moody and Melvina petitioned to have their streets made cul-de-sacs but all Doherty did was file the petitions in the circular file and in so doing North Edgebrook starting becoming a thoroughfare for Niles’ traffic.
Fast forward to 2007 and Niles eliminated the right turn only lane on Melvina in Niles probably because they got tired of Melvina/Tahoma/Mankato/Estes residents complaining to them about not ticketing the right turn only violators. I did an estimate of well over 2000 violations a week. Niles Police must have got tired of Chicago people telling them that they weren’t doing their job because they weren’t and eliminated the right turn only lane. No right turn only lane – nothing to complain about.
In December of 2006 I circulated petitions on Melvina/Tahoma for speed bumps on Melvina and stop signs at Melvina/Tahoma/Estes. What and education this was! I learned that four other residents had been actively sending letters of complaint to Doherty over the amount of traffic that was using the neighborhood because of the Niles industrial/commercial area and they all said the same thing – that Doherty never responded to their complaints. The word got around that Doherty was looking the other way and a general pall of apathy set in.
In August of 2007 I circulated a petition to have Melvina made a one way street after Niles eliminated the right turn only lane. I reasoned if Nagle could be made a one way street a precedent had been set for Melvina. Another Melvina resident told me she had requested a petition form Doherty’s office to have Melvina made a one way street but just somehow received a petition for alley speed bumps instead. Finally I got a letter from Doherty’s office – a whopping three sentences. It said speed bumps were going to be installed on Melvina and if I had any questions I should call his office, so I called. Apparently I’m on the do not call list because I couldn’t get a response back. Maybe you have to be in with the in crowd. One police officer on Melvina who works in Wrigleyville told me he was against the speed bumps because they are only effective in low traffic areas and that in high traffic areas the daily traffic quickly learns to gauge the speed necessary to travel over them and it becomes a Dukes of Hazard type of thing. This turned out to be true and with the elimination of the right turn lane by Niles the traffic on Melvina increased by greater than ten times. I wanted to ask Doherty if speed bumps were the smart thing to do now that Niles had eliminated the right turn only lane because of the potential increase in traffic. I have to wonder if the attempted child knappings that occurred in 2007 right after Niles eliminated the right turn only lane weren’t just a coincidence. Once the traffic learned how to get through the neighborhood north to south it also learned how to get through the neighborhood south to north creating an inter neighborhood sub arterial thoroughfare that goes right past Wildwood Park, Wildwood School and SMOW, all highly child populated areas. It also created a lot of traffic going down Estes to avoid the stoplights at Touhy and Caldwell and the Y. One Estes residents even went out and bought a “Slow” flag sign to put up when her children are out playing.
Now with the significant volume of traffic coming through the North Edgebrook/Wildwood neighborhood because of the Niles commercial/industrial area and the recklessness with which this traffic uses North Edgebrook/Wildwood it is just a question of time until some child gets hit. It doesn’t do much for the property values either. It has turned out to be true that the speed bumps are ineffective except against the trucks from the Niles industrial area that are illegally using Melvina. Now the only hope is that Doherty wins the Senate race in November or gets beat by someone in February 2011 because North Edgebrook was definitely a neighborhood that was for sale and was sold.
LfL, thanks a Million for sharing some historical aspects of North Edgebrook/Wildwood, of some of which I was not aware. But first things first.
My family and I have been residents of “The Patch” since early 2003, hence I’m not privy to some of the historical details of this tiny area. But I really love the term “The Patch” because that essentially sums up what it is: A little patch that’s a bit disconnected from North Edgebrook (via Touhy Ave). My next door neighbors who have lived here forever, have told us about this being part of Niles at one point etc., prior to being annexed by Chicago. But I have never heard any of the subdivision residents talk about “The Patch”. Very cool.
Secondly, your situation with Melvina/Touhy is in some ways different than our struggles with the formerly proposed parking garage at 6000 W Touhy. I’d venture to guess that about 90% of the residents of our subdivision (about 95 homes in total) were actively opposed against the parking garage. That means, numerous petitions, signed by almost everyone in The Patch, and actually showing up by the dozens at 41st Ward Zoning Board Advisory meetings at Olympia Park, when this issue was on the agenda. At one of the meetings, we actually had about 60 residents plus their kids pile into the meeting room. It was impressive. The other thing that worked to our advantage was the fact that one of our residents works for the Dept. of Buildings, and would therefore be able to keep us posted on some of the behind-the-scene issues that were going on with this case. Of course, there was a very strong dose of politics mixed in as well, but with zoning issues that’s to be expected. The main thing that helped us advance our cause though was the unity of the residents, and the refusal to quit, even when things seemed to look bleak for us. Brian Nadig was actually very fair and accurate in reporting the 6000 W Touhy case.
I lived on Ionia in the late 1950′s and early 60′s.
We called it the Prairie. We went sledding on the hill in winter
and tromping through the dry grass in summer to make hay houses.
Climbed trees and chased lightening bugs. It was a great time to
live in Edgebrook. Mothers called and told on you if you misbehaved. The Larson’s house on Ionia, often had their back yard flooded by the boys to go skating in the winter. The fire hydrant would be opened by those same boys in the summer to cool off. Plums from the Pycena’s trees. Our yard was a veritable orchard with pears, cherries, apples and plum trees. Life in Edgebrook was the American dream. Enjoy the neighborhood. So sorry to hear about
the Lutheran church fire. I was baptized there on an Easter Sunday long ago!
Linda, I loved reading about your childhood memories on Ionia, and other places in Edgebrook. Believe it or not, it’s still kind of like that a little bit – provided that a vast number of kids in our community decide to put aside their Nintendo’s, or take a break from three straight hours of Facebooking, or turning off the Disney Channel. In a way, life in Edgebrook (and Sauganash) is still the American Dream, only a little more high-tech. During hot summers there is plenty of activity in our parks at Wildwood, Edgebrook, and Sauganash. Sure, you’ll see kids on Ripstiks (modern-day skateboards) with iPods connected to their ears, while texting on their cell phones. But that’s just a sign of technological progress. My personal favorite, btw: Driving to the DQ on Devon Ave in Park Ridge on a hot summer evening to get a Blizzard. That’ll take you back in time, every time (with all due respect to the Chocolate Shoppe on Devon Ave in Edgebrook).
Thank you for stopping by, and chiming in, Linda. We’d love to hear more of your stories from the past.
P.S.: The Edgebrook Lutheran Church fire a couple of weeks ago was indeed a real tragedy. At the risk of breaking your heart, I snapped some pictures on the day after the fire which you can see here.