Laurel/Western Project Has Strong Opposition: Letter

The following letter was written and submitted by Debbie Dent.

Our town government is about to approve a large residential development near the center of town despite overwhelming, strong opposition to it including a petition signed by over 300 residents. The site for this project – ten acres located on the northwest corner of Laurel and Western Avenues – was formerly the home to the town’s municipal offices, which were abandoned in favor of its current offices that cost the taxpayers over $23 million to build.

This Laurel/Western Project, which is slated for final City Council approval in February 2016, “will change forever the northern portion of downtown Lake Forest and has the potential to launch an uncharacteristic urbanized environment that can never be changed.” (Written Public Comment by the Lake Forest Preservation Foundation, March 2015.)

This Project seeks to cram into a ten-acre site: 164 new residential units (about 400-500 new residents) in three apartment buildings, one condo building and twelve single-family row houses. This Project was conceived years ago by our city planners and City Council and has been railroaded through ever since despite tremendous opposition from current residents, particularly those residing near the Project, who see little to no gain but a lot of pain resulting from it.

This Project, which offers very little, if any, benefit to the current residents of this town, will be heavily subsidized with property tax revenues even though it is a strictly residential development to be owned by a private developer, Focus Development Group. Focus appears to have a specialty of turning low-density sites into high density residential ones, often with attendant citizen uproar similar to that advanced against this Project.

Our town projects to spend $31 million in tax dollars on this Project, money it hopes to repay with tax revenues generated over the next 23 years from the residential units in this Project, tax dollars that will be funneled into a Tax Increment Financing (“TIF”) fund rather than into the general tax coffers. A TIF is a tool rarely and only inappropriately used for strictly private residential developments. Though governments seeking to use TIFs often tout them in a favorable light, in reality, they are a “bad deal” for taxpayers even when used appropriately. “The Case against Tax-Increment Financing TIF is Not ‘Free Money’” (Cato Institute, May 2011); “Tax Increment Financing: A Bad Bargain for Taxpayers” (Reason Magazine, Jan. 2006).

Where is this $31 million going? Many business entities have and will enjoy the fruits of it, including consultants and lawyers to the tune of $500,000.

However, the entity that will benefit the most from this TIF fund money is the developer – one with which other private developers and homeowners alike will be competing on an uneven playing field for the sale of their residences.

From documents not published by the town but produced in response to a FOIA request, the large expected expenditures, many of which are typically absorbed by a private developer for a private development, include: 1) $7,950,000 in “property assembly, acquisition [buying a private home and some land for over $1 million], demolition, site preparation”; 2) $2,150,000 in “public works” construction and improvements such as streets, parking and walkways near and inside the Project, cable, electric and sewer, and high-end landscaping; and 3) $7,000,000 in interest costs to finance these expenditures over time. The TIF fund is also projected to pay $12.6 million over 23 years to our schools, but it will not contribute to other public services such as fire, police, waste disposal and town government or to infrastructure repairs and improvements, leaving the rest of the taxpayers to foot these bills for the next 23 years without tax contributions from these 164 new residential units.

What makes this public subsidy aspect even more disturbing is that Focus does not plan to continue to own and operate the Project after its completion. It instead plans to fill the 110 rental units by offering financial incentives to renters who might not otherwise be able to afford to live in them and then, once this revenue stream is established, sell the apartments to an institutional investor.

The public comments to date, which have been virtually unanimously negative, fall into the following categories: 1) The Project’s high density, with its attendant parking and traffic problems and as well as its burden on public services;

2) its buildings’ huge mass and height, particularly given the uneven grading of the site – the height will approach that of the Market Square Clock Tower; 3) the overall “institutional” look of the Project; 4) the Project’s utter lack of fit with the character of the neighborhood and of the town itself; 5) the transient nature of the residents it will attract due to the predominance of rental units; 6) the lack of critical aspects of it revealed to the public; and 7) the big hit property values in that area will likely take.

Note that our town officials, without public explanation or justification, has refused a substantial scale-back in the height and density of the Project, even though a smaller project would be less offensive to current residents and would still bring in substantial property tax revenue in the years to come.

Also note that 15% of the units in this “luxury” Project will be designated as “affordable” pursuant to the Lake Forest Inclusionary Housing Ordinance. For a family of four, i.e., likely two children added to our school system, the income cap for some units will be $45,600 per year and the rent and utilities for these units can total no more than $1,140 per month ($13,680/year). According to the Illinois Report Card, the 2015 cost per student at LFHS for “Instructional Spending” alone was $13,360 (and much more considering all costs). Thus, these affordable units are akin to handing out lottery winnings at taxpayers’ expense.

Our town aggressively sought survey input from residents about design choices for the interior of the east Lake Forest train station, yet it has flatly refused a request to publicize the salient aspects of this Project to the general public and to seek input via a survey.

Please voice your opposition if you stand in favor of your fellow residents and against this out-of-character, publicly-subsidized housing project, one admitted by its Developer to be “a totally different animal than Lake Forest has ever seen.”

Public comments on the matter include: 

• “This development will destroy the quiet and peaceful Lake Forest we know.”

• “This will lower property values in Lake Forest, without doubt.”
• “This development will turn north Western Avenue into a noisy public

highway.”

• “Your once adorable town center will now be where people fight for parking spaces. Your once stress free lifestyle will be aggravated with over population.””
• “The development … just isn’t compatible with Lake Forest standards.”
• “It looks like a college campus, a quad.”