By Kari Lydersen
Forty-sixth Ward alderman Helen Shiller is firmly in the affordable-housing camp, though she does think community-based retail should be part of the project. When speculation started that the CTA might sell Wilson Yard, the Uptown Community Development Corporation set up a meeting between Shiller, CTA president David Mosena, and representatives from the city and Truman College. Shiller wanted to be sure that the community would be involved in the process of deciding what would be done with the land. “The Department of Housing and the CTA decided they wanted to do a study to see whether it would be viable to do development at Wilson Yard,” she says. “They were just going to hire a consultant who would look at the demographics–which aren’t accurate anyway. I said, ‘Why don’t we instead do a community-driven process?’ To my knowledge, no one’s done this before.” As a result, the Department of Planning and Development and the CTA agreed to fund a planning process and hold off on the sale until the process was complete.
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UCC members believe Shiller has long ignored their input, long failed to give them any real power in decision making in the ward. “There’s a difference between having community meetings and actually having a role in the decision-making process,” says Rae Mindock, president of the Sheridan Park Neighbors Association, which includes the area that borders Wilson Yard and is one of the groups in the UCC. “We felt like we didn’t have any appropriate voice to express what we wanted.” Last year the UCC asked Shiller to form a zoning committee in which they could participate. “When she refused to do that–which we thought was very undemocratic–we started our own,” says Pavilon. “She said she’d rather go around and get people’s opinions–more laissez-faire.”
The UCC isn’t happy that the fate of Wilson Yard may be decided by the task force. “The [Department of Planning and Development] didn’t even consult with groups like ONE, the Chinese Mutual Aid Association, or the UCC,” says Pavilon. “Even though we often don’t agree on things like housing and police protection, ONE is a very good, bona fide organization of elected people who should have been recognized in a project like this–as should the UCC. The DPD in its stupidity just bypassed us.”
