Holzhauer Opposes Transparency

Would you be upset if you woke up to find construction crews building an affordable housing project next door to your house? A project that you had no opportunity to learn about, support or oppose, or provide input on. A project that could impact your neighborhood schools and your quality of life.

Councilman Holzhauer thinks you should suck it up and deal with it. At the most recent council meeting, Holzhauer strongly supported a controversial staff idea that would allow for affordable housing developments to move forward “by right”. By right means no public hearing would be necessary for the proposal to move forward.

The staff proposal to allow such treatment was soundly rejected by the Plan Commission. It was also rejected by our Mayor and the majority of council without vote at the last meeting. Nonetheless, Holzhauer pounded the table to bring such  developments forward without the need for public hearing.

How utterly ridiculous and what an insult to our residents. Naperville, please keep Holzhauer’s flippant attitude toward resident input in mind when voting next April. There will be many strong choices on the ballot who will value your input (and who also have always paid their taxes).

Show 16 Comments

16 Comments

  1. John Georgias

    Another example of Ian putting politics over the people of Naperville, how sad!!

  2. mark urda

    The truth has three compenents: the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. To gauge if you feel if CCWD meets this criterion I recommend that you read the following Chicago Tribune article https://www.chicagotribune.com/2024/11/20/naperville-city-council-affordable-housing-incentives/ and see if it is true or just another partisan attack. Naperville continues to fail at resolving the affordable housing and printing a pretty catalog instead revising issues with proposed ordinance is a council failure on a grand scale.

    • Freedom Fighter

      Odd comment. It’s partisan to want transparency? What about the post isn’t true? Your link corroborates the post.

      • Jim Haselhorst

        It’s partisan to consider this ordnance proposal as lacking transparency when it meets the same transparency standard as every other zoning ordnance in the city. This same standard has been used in making changes to existing ordnance as well as new zoning classification ordnances for decades in Naperville.

        Declaring this proposed ordnance as being non-transparent makes all of Naperville’s zoning ordnances non-transparent, since it complies with the same city’s established standard for transparency that existing ordnance complies with.

  3. Sam Nelson

    Ian is a well known grifter and odd dude. Vote him out and elect someone who is competent. Same with grifter Benny.

  4. Mark Urda

    You think the issue is transparency not the failure to address the affordable housing problem. You target Ian but fail to mention years of effort by consultant and staff to develop ordinance. If Naperville does not resolve this issue, the State of Illinois may be forced to do it for us and transparency will be the least of our problems. Maybe CCWD should consider proposing meaningful solutions instead of complaining.

    • Bill McCormick

      We don’t elect consultants and staff. We elect council members who are supposed to hold people and projects to account. Council abdicates this role when approving “by right” and sheds less light – the best disinfectant – on those projects.

      While the resulting NIMBYism may be ignoble, it has resulted in creative solutions and buy-in that aren’t possible to achieve “by right.” I look forward to a proposal that fosters both development of affordable housing and government transparency and accountability. Your cynicism regarding this possibility, and desire to impose your solutions on others, insults council and the voters.

      • Jim Haselhorst

        The overwhelming majority of homes in Naperville were built “by right”. In fact, it is a legal requirement for a zoning ordnance to provide for conforming use of properties in all zoning classifications.

        The city has continuously changed these conforming use requirements as well as creating new types of zoning that allow for properties to be developed as conforming use in ways that would have required city council approval before these changes. So what was proposed here is nothing new or lacking in transparency.

        The reality is that if the city does not act to address the growing shortage of affordable housing in the community, the state will impose state regulations forcing these changes. The state has been warning the city for close to 10 years now that it must address this issue. I would rather have city elected officials making changes to our community standards to fix the affordable housing issue than state elected and appointed officials.

        Finally, the proposed changes included a notification requirement to every property within 300 feet of the property being developed (same as with every other property being developed in the city). How is this well established standard not transparent to the neighbors?

        • Bill McCormick

          Apparently a majority of council didn’t agree with you, both about the risk and the transparency. No, I don’t believe 100 yards is sufficient notice for a potential multi unit development that could alter traffic patterns in a neighborhood or stress enrollment at an elementary school. Perhaps you’ve forgotten what it’s like to have children under the age of 12.

          The “tradition” part of your argument is contrary to your normal stance. Don’t be surprised to see it circle back on you.

          More importantly, Naperville has changed. Once upon a time, Naperville was a sleepy town toward the end of the commuter railway. Then development was encouraged and “by right” made sense. Now every project comes under intense scrutiny, which is now prudent given the limited development opportunities.

          • Jim Haselhorst

            The distance is not 100 yards it is 300 yards and allows has been. There was some debate about if this was sufficient some years ago at city council and the basic conclusion was that it is.

            My point was that the city has already establish a standard of conforming use and has applied this uniformly to both changes in zoning and new zoning, as recently as just a few years ago. So what has change that makes this standard the was acceptable a few years ago suddenly not longer transparent? And if the issue is truly transparency then why not make this requirement of all zones not just this one case?

            As I pointed out this type of behavior is something new, and it is not good governance just bad politics.

          • Bill McCormick

            Jim, first you said 300 ft, which I converted to 100 yards. Now you’re saying triple that distance – 300 yards. Getting closer to fairness . . .

  5. Mark Urda

    Actually you and I agree on the role of city council, and it was my disappointment in not working to revise ordinance to address ” by right” issue instead of kicking it down the road again. Ian was just one of four who voted against mayor’s picture book diversion but again got CCWD partisan ire. I recognize that this is a conservative venue but it used to be much more balanced and less vindictive. We can only hope that it can return to its roots.

  6. Bill McCormick

    Then we agree on both the role of council and the needless damage caused by unprincipled partisan argument. ?

  7. Jim Haselhorst

    Describing this ordnance’s failure to be passed by council as a resounding defeat when it was actually a 5-4 vote is misleading at best.

    Further, attacking Ian for his position on this proposed ordnance, and ignoring the positions of the other 3 council members that voted to pass this ordnance makes this post look more like a political hit job, than any real concern about what is best for community development.

    In fact focusing solely on Ian in this post, without any discussion or providing any details of the actual ordnance proposed, makes the true intent of this post during a city council election cycle crystal clear.

    • Joan Murray

      CCWD has become a political arm of local conservatives. I appreciate
      the comment section that brings the CCWD out of an echo chamber status.

  8. Jim Haselhorst

    Lets be clear. This ordnance proposal did not just pop out of thin air. It was the direct result of the city council directing the city staff to draft this exact ordnance proposal.

    There was a discussion by city council about establishing an ordnance that would provide relaxed conforming use standards for developers willing to make affordable housing the focus of their development. There were no concerns expressed by any of the members of city council (including those that voted against this proposal) about such an ordnance lacking transparency by providing these conforming use concessions.

    We are seeing far to many incidents at city council meetings of council members supporting motions to direct city staff to research and develop proposals for city council to consider only to have these same members attack these proposals on grounds they did not voice when providing direction to city staff. These attacks are clearly based on political grounds that existed when these member(s) voted to direct staff to work on these proposals.

    This behavior not only wastes city council time, time that could be focus on matters of direct concern to the community, but also creates an environment on city council similar to what we have seen at the federal, state and county legislative levels which has only resulted in “do nothing” legislative periods due to political stalemate.

    Council members voting to directing city staff to spend funds, time and other resources to develop proposal that they will use to promote their divisive political agenda does not benefit our community in anyway. The only benefit of this behavior is to the political “careers” of the members involved. I for one, did not vote for members of city council to waste city resource to advance their political agendas or career. We need to get back to city council members who are committed to acting for the best benefit of the community, the type of city council members that made this city great. This new type of city council member, that intentionally creates politically divisive situations in council, is only harming our community, hindering it growth & development and dividing us as a community.

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