the promises and pitfalls of adu s

BY DAVID ZEGEYE

Igrew up in a garden unit on an African and Caribbean block of Rogers Park. As a kid, my block felt alive. The Jamaican elders would give me life advice as I greeted them, Nigerian parties would take over the apartments above us, and the smell of my family’s Ethiopian cooking would make our neighbors wish they could join our home for dinner.

Although our rent was cheaper than our neighbors, we had the largest apartment in the building. Having a space that we could call our own for family gatherings, mournings, and celebrations gave my family a sense of pride and comfort. Just as diverse as the cultural backgrounds of the residents, the buildings on my block were a mixture of four-flats, courtyards, rowhomes, and classic bungalows. If I wanted to admire Chicago architecture, I just had to step outside of my apartment. More importantly, though, I was happy to have a home.

The garden unit I grew up in is unfortunately considered illegal across many parts of Chicago. These forms of housing, along with other accessory dwelling units (ADUs) such as coach houses and attic units, have long been a part of the city’s urban fabric. Their smaller size have helped them serve as naturally occurring forms of affordable housing. As rents have been rising in Hyde Park, I now live in a coach house built in the early 1900s because it is one of the few apartments I can afford.

ADUs have been banned since the 1950s due to fears of overcrowding. Unfortunately, the more recent trend of housing loss has exacerbated the practice of unpermitted units across the city. This has been particularly true in Pilsen and Little Village, where residents who need affordable rent have to live with safety concerns and fears of getting evicted by city inspectors. There has been a citywide push to re-allow ADUs as a way to increase the affordable housing stock. An ordinance was introduced to City Council last month proposing that ADUs be allowed as-of-right across most of Chicago.

Department of Housing (DOH) and Department of Planning and Development (DPD) commissioners Marisa Novara and Maurice Cox spoke at the 11th Annual Woodlawn Community Summit in early March about how ADUs could benefit Woodlawn. As the Obama Presidential Center has been driving concerns around gentrification and housing prices, they discussed ADUs as an “incremental way to gently insert density” while increasing affordability in the neighborhood.

However, the definition of affordability is relative, and the price of new units is not guaranteed to be affordable to residents in different parts of the city. The city’s ADU ordinance would require that half of converted basement and attic units are affordable to residents making sixty percent of the area median income (AMI), which ranges from $38,000 to $72,000, depending on family size. While this would be affordable to a household in Lakeview, these rates would be unaffordable to most households in Woodlawn, since sixty percent of citywide AMI is significantly higher than the neighborhood’s median income.

Much of the discussion around ADUs has focused on legalizing and constructing them, with little discussion of their impact on (and potential for) the South Side. 35th Ward Alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa has even argued that ADUs should be referred to more colloquially as coach houses or garden apartments, to better reach residents.

In turn, I interviewed local residents and community leaders across the South Side so they could share their thoughts on the matter.

Imet with Jawanza Malone, Bronzeville resident and executive director of the Kenwood-Oakland Community Organization (KOCO), a grassroots organization that advocates for low-income and working families. Jawanza has fought for affordable housing for low-income residents and is familiar with ADUs both in concept and in practice.

Jawanza discussed how ADUs already exist on the South Side, though they are banned in most neighborhoods due to zoning limits. “People are already living in illegal basements, illegal coach houses, because people need somewhere to live, and that’s what has been available at affordable rents because people knew they were illegal.” Jawanza mentioned the possibility that even if ADUs were legalized across the city, landlords would still offer them at lower quality than other units. “What happens when we have substandard conditions we’re asking people to live in? It seems like it creates more problems than it actually solves. I don’t think that’s the way for us to go.”

Jawanza expressed skepticism that ADUs will be affordable for low-income Black residents. “The idea, also, that we’re gonna have this watershed moment in terms of providing housing for people by opening us the basement units and coach houses is just ridiculous. As far as we know now, there’s a deficit of 182,000 units. We’re not gonna get there by opening up basements and coach houses.” He argued that because real estate interests have marketed ADUs as affordable options for cities across the country, affordable housing activists are gaslighted into supporting them if they vocalize their concerns or opposition.

As we continued talking, we got to the discussion of gentrification across the mid-South Side. Over forty percent of residents make less than $25,000 in the area, while much of the new construction is for homes being sold over $500,000. Jawanza expressed concern that renovations which add ADUs, or bring unpermitted ones up to code, would not mitigate the displacement of low-income Black residents, since if ADUs became legal, landlords could charge pre-existing units the same rent as other apartments in the building.

Ashley is a recent college graduate from Englewood and has lived across different parts of the community. Her family now lives in a twoflat, a staple of the neighborhood’s housing stock, with a garden unit and a coach house in the rear.

Chicago’s DOH sees ADUs as a way for “multi-generational households to remain close” while reducing crowding. Now that she has graduated, Ashley has been wanting her own space to continue her studies. The