February 28, 2025

 

J.B. Pritzker, Governor of Illinois

Office of the Governor

555 W. Monroe St., 16th Floor

Chicago, IL 60661

 

Dear Governor Pritzker:

Your apparent support, as indicated by comments from Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, of three bills in the Illinois legislature is extremely disturbing. You, other Democratic office holders, and the state Democratic Party in general are at risk of losing significant support by backing these measures.

These bills, which are HB 3288 – Affordable Communities Act, HB 1814 – Muni CD-Zoning Middle Housing, and HB 1843 – Muni CD-Zoning Limits, are attempts to circumvent local control of housing.  Such proposed mandates are attempts to force limitations on local entities and smack of authoritarian “only I know best” attitude that we are seeing at other government levels.

The poorly conceived and inadequately supported attempts of Mayor Biss to force upzoning of all neighborhoods in Evanston are endangering the solidarity of the Democrats in this city. Why are you and the state Democratic Party becoming involved in a local Evanston matter?  These House Bills are being viewed as an end-run against the significant citizen opposition to proposed regulations that in many cases would destroy the character of the city and its neighborhoods.

Many Democrats are strongly opposed and very actively working against the upzoning efforts as stated in the Biss-sponsored Envision Evanston 2045 proposal. The original document was so ill- conceived, poorly written and factually unsupportable that the city fired the consultants hired by the Biss team to create the proposal. The numerous shortcomings of the proposal were exposed during citizen investigations and comments at local committee and Evanston city council meetings. The hurriedly assembled second draft of the Envision proposal continues many of the same factually unsupportable statements and continuing efforts to up-zone neighborhoods.

For additional information, I have attached a copy of a letter sent to Evanston City Council members and Evanston Land Use commission members concerning specific of the Envision Evanston 2045 proposal. It is signed by more than 80 Evanston residents.

Do you really want to be known for supporting legislation that was developed from an ill-conceived attempt to impose zoning changes in only one city in Illinois, but if enacted could impact all 1,294 villages, towns and cities throughout the state? If this situation is of such interest to you and the legislature, I am now more concerned about all the other much greater challenges facing this state.

Please publicly state that you do not support these state-wide House Bills and indicate your belief that issues as noted in these bills are best resolved at the local level. Your public support would be most reassuring.

 

Michael L. Bruening

 

cc: Brad Cole, Chief Executive Officer

Illinois Municipal League

P.O. Box 5180

Springfield, IL

62705-5180