By Ben Joravsky
The community’s a curious place for a Lincoln Park-like land-use war. It is, residents joke, “nowhere land,” or the “pope’s nose of the city”–an anonymous slice of turf without a trendy name (officially, it’s part of Avondale) and no strong political identity. Even zoning officials don’t seem to know which ward it’s in.
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Yet gentrification is slowly making its way west along Addison, the tell-tale sign being the number of suited professionals who hike home each afternoon from the Addison stop on the O’Hare line. It was only a matter of time before the development bug moved in from Lakeview and Lincoln Park.
“I couldn’t believe it when I got the news. I said, ‘You gotta be kidding me,’” says Natalie Borucki, a Central Park Avenue resident. “I still don’t believe it.”
“We said, ‘How are you going to build town houses if there is no street?’ He said, ‘There’s a street.’ We said, ‘Where?’ He said, ‘According to my map there’s 13 feet of street going right here.’ This went on for a while. He said there’s a street, and we said show us the street. It was like 1984–more is less and war is peace–real crazy stuff. He also had this real estate agent with him who kept saying, ‘Don’t worry, I’m bringing in quality people, no local residents, just quality people, like airplane pilots.’ What’s that all about, no local residents? Have we just been insulted? We don’t want to turn this into the next hot area. This isn’t Lincoln Park. We don’t want this to be anything other than what it is–a nice, comfortable neighborhood.”
“There is a street. Don’t let them tell you there’s no street. You know that cul-de-sac on Monticello? We’re going to knock down part of the fence on the north end of the lot and build a connector to that cul-de-sac.”
Three weeks ago 30th Ward alderman Mike Wojcik met on the site with about 40 residents. After hearing the residents’ gripes, Wojcik pledged his opposition to the proposal and promised to ask city zoning administrator Paul Woznicki to investigate as to whether the land could be developed. (Neither Woznicki nor Wojcik returned phone calls for comment.)
