6-Story Apartment Building At Central and McGovern Approved

McGovern Flats, a planned six-story apartment building, looks to take shape at Central and McGovern avenues in downtown Highland Park by 2017.

The city council agreed to allow developer Greg Merdinger to deviate from some of the requirements that were part of the city’s new zoning rules to allow the complex, according to the Highland Park News.

Of the 74 one- and two-bedroom units planned, 11 will be set aside as affordable housing - the largest number in a single complex since the city adopted an inclusionary zoning ordinance 12 years ago. Under the current formula, income for those to be housed in those units would need to be capped at $31,920 annually for an individual and roughly $40,000 a year for a family of three.

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The site will be assembled from five parcels, according to the News, and replace four single-family homes and a Clark gasoline station.

Replacing those who currently reside in the homes was an issue for Highland Park resident David Borris, who is also president of the Chicago Area Peace Action.

“You have done a traffic impact study. You have done a fiscal impact study. But we haven’t done a human impact study,” said Borris. “There are families that are living there. To go ahead and displace those families with a month’s notice, two or three month’s notice with no provision at all for where they are going to go, or how we are going to keep these Highland Park families within our community is, I think, an oversight.”

more via the Highland Park News