In any other neighborhood Bill Smith’s 23-unit town house complex, having won the local alderman’s support, would be under construction by now whether neighbors wanted it or not. But this being Lincoln Park, things are a little different. These neighbors have a lawyer living on their block who argued their case before the Zoning Board of Appeals, where, to their pleasant surprise, they won.
“To get a variance you need the alderman’s support, and you won’t get the alderman’s support if the residents aren’t behind you,” says Mellis, Wrightwood’s planning chairman. “When Smith came to me I called Skyline, and they ran an article notifying people about the plan. Then I put together a committee of interested people. I invited the chamber of commerce, local business leaders, and some nearby residents. We weren’t going to come to a final decision. We were going to work with Smith and come up with something reasonable that we could bring to the larger community at a public meeting.”
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To make matters more confusing, Eisendrath had left office for a job with the federal government, and his replacement, Charles Bernardini, was still learning the ropes. The site itself is in a political no-man’s-land. It’s currently in the 43rd Ward, but it becomes part of Alderman Terry Gabinski’s 32nd Ward when the new ward map takes effect in 1995. “We didn’t know which alderman to appeal to–Bernardini or Gabinski,” says Maria Torres, another resident. “We had no leader.”
But Smith refused to make any more concessions. And on February 7 he sent residents a letter telling them that they’d better accept his original plan–or else.
Singer told the group he was there only as a concerned resident who felt obliged to inform his neighbors that Piers was wrong. Smith would get his zoning variance. And if he didn’t, he would indeed build that mid-rise.
The last anyone heard from Smith, he was sticking to his mid-rise plan, though rumor has it he’ll go with five and not eight stories. “I still wonder if he can get his financing,” says Torres. “We’d be better off if Smith would just swallow his pride and negotiate with us like he should have done in the first place.”
