City on illegal apartments: No more Mr. Nice Guy
Filing 68 suits seen as 'a good start'

October 23, 2006
BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter
The city has filed 68 lawsuits against renegade landlords in the four months since exasperated aldermen ordered City Hall to get tough to stop the epidemic of illegal conversions -- residential units illegally carved into the attic or basement of single family homes.



"I'm thrilled. The world of administrative hearings may be good for collecting default judgments against people who don't show, but it's not good for getting compliance. No one ever gets kicked out of these buildings," said Northwest Side Ald. Tom Allen (38th), who has joined Zoning Committee Chairman William Banks (36th) in leading the charge against illegal conversions.

"[Sixty-eight lawsuits is] a good start. But we have to ratchet up the number of cases we get into court and follow through. Otherwise, there's going to be another fire and another tragedy. It's only a question of time."

Chicago neighborhoods -- particularly those on the Northwest and Southwest Sides -- have been feeling the strain of illegal conversions that violate building and zoning codes. Schools are overcrowded. Streets are congested. Garbage piles up. Parking spaces on residential streets are gobbled up.


'A hazard to the family'
On June 22, Allen put his foot down. He persuaded the City Council's Zoning Committee to order the Daley administration to refer all illegal conversion cases to Circuit Court.
No more referrals to administrative hearing officers who issue fines but fail to order the building returned to its previous condition. No more defaults, which happen automatically when people fail to appear at hearings.

Four months later, 68 lawsuits have been filed by the city's Law Department, according to Zoning Administrator Patty Scudiero. That's 18 more than the average for an entire year before Allen's ordinance was approved, when lawsuits were filed only when there was clear evidence the number of residential units built violated the zoning code.

"We went to a community hearing and a woman was testifying about an apartment next door where a person was collecting $1,000 in rent per month. If they're forced to comply and that apartment is gone, they're losing $12,000 a year. They can't sell it for a multi-unit building. The word gets out and people stop doing it. It's not worth it to make a basement apartment if you cannot rent it out," Scudiero said.

"It's a life safety hazard. That's the biggest issue. If you have a family living in a basement and there's only one means of ingress and egress, that is a hazard to that family. How does the Fire Department get down there?"

Allen said he and two other Northwest Side aldermen got an earful about conversions at a community hearing last week.<

"We got excoriated. I felt like I was in a time warp. Thirteen, 14 years ago, I was addressing the same fiery complaints," he said.

fspielman@suntimes.com



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