The latest collateral damage is the resignation of Forest Park’s Planner. Losing professional and credible planning guidance could not come at a worse time. Blame the status quo adherence to our zoning process as the main culprit.

I am reaffirming that the tabled Residential Zoning Code Amendments (Batch 1) needs to be passed. 

After reviewing recent FPR letters to the editor messages I found some old opinion-based zoning narratives. I stopped visiting the Taylors in Mayberry via Forest Park a long time ago! There are inconsistencies of reality in modeling a fictitious TV rural town, locked in the mid-1960s, that portray a sense of hometown well-being. That was a town with no Black or Brown citizens and a comical mechanic played by an actor still in the closet. The issue of density is misrepresented as a correlation to flooding and renters are treated as undesirables and transients. Have you seen the high rents in Forest Park? 

Another letter to the editor describes families with children choosing Forest Park that sounds a lot like gentrification. Noting “the Proviso problem” is also a mask for a Forest Park culture of racial avoidance of Proviso East High School. Andrew Cox labeled this discourse as “The irrational hatred of anything Proviso.” Today it could also be called Proviso Derangement Syndrome. Local white Forest Parkers have for decades followed the model of white flight and created a premature house-selling market and cycle. The rule was and still might be “sell before sixth grade. The current zoning delivers segregation. Important issues in addressing the housing shortage and affordability have not seen the light of day. 

 Every hour, every day, every week and month that this legislation languishes, not getting passed, costs the community of Forest Park money.  

Case in point, the new change to zoning allows for a path way to construct ADU (accessory dwelling unit). One percent of the 5,000 homes in the village want to invest and construct one. Those 50 projects would bring in over $5 million, new jobs, new collected revenue from fees/permits, additional taxpayers, and much needed relief for senior homeowners like me. It is proven that construction of multifamily and additional housing units will bring rentals down. That provides the savings people need to afford buying their first home. 

The current Forest Park zoning provides no solutions for first-time home buyers or ways to decrease rents. The current zoning can produce artificial house values. Think of it as Forest Park residents paying a zoning tax. 

Not passing these zoning changes fractures sustainability, affordability, economic development, and pushes the village closer to the edge of the fiscal cliff. Expenditures cannot exceed revenues. That is something we all can’t afford. 

I recently talked with another Forest Park old-timer. The easiest way to solve this problem is this simple and popular solution … that is, to just move away. Is this the best we as a Community, including the village council can do? 

Robert Cox
Forest Park