Letter to Evanston City Council on the Proposed Five Fifth’s TIF District
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Dear Mayor Biss and Members of the Evanston City Council:
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Community Alliance for Better Government (CABG) commends Fifth Ward Alderman Bobby Burns for taking the initiative to ensure that Fifth Ward residents that have historically been underserved are prioritized front and center at last by the City of Evanston.
The question before the City Council SHOULD NOT be whether the Fifth Ward is justified in seeking resources to rectify past practices of disinvestment. The obvious answer is, YES. The Fifth Ward deserves significant investment.
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The issue before the Council is two-fold: (1) what is the plan for investment within the Fifth Ward with specific anticipated projects and how much does it cost?; and (2) what funding mechanisms and protections evidence the most sincere commitment from the City to the people of the Fifth Ward? Until these questions are answered, CABG urges the City Council to vote “NO” on a TIF.
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Racial equity requires restitution by the very bodies that abetted discrimination. CABG deplores the collusion between public and private bodies that, over the course of more than a century, created segregated and unequal white and Black neighborhoods in Evanston. Indeed, the real estate industry, with a blind eye at best from the City, steered Black homeseekers into the Fifth Ward solely due to their race. Moreover, they devalued their homes and with the 2008 foreclosure crisis, siphoned their wealth.
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Today, the Black population has declined at the same time that demand for suburban Evanston homes has increased. This is a recipe for displacement of generations of families who call the Fifth Ward home.
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Justice demands that funds for Fifth Ward stakeholders should come right out of the City budget on an annual basis, with policies for equitable development to match.
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CABG recommends that the City begin the work of reviewing the woefully outdated West Evanston Master Plan in conjunction with Ward residents in an open, transparent, and fully participatory process. What specific mix of preservation and new development are the people of the Fifth Ward seeking? Further, to what extent will land be protected from the speculative market through mechanisms like deed restrictions or Community Land Trusts? How will this development tie into affordable housing creation and preservation in the rest of the City — which leads into the conversation about the need for a housing plan for the City of Evanston.
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The City can then take the ideas and data collected from residents and prioritize them based on consistent and publicly-held values of equity and inclusion, put a price tag on them, and finally, appropriate the funds.
Community Alliance for Better Government