Council flexes as Edgewater housing plan gets taller — and no, that’s not a metaphor, those are actual buildings. This is The Chicago Daily Fix — aldermen are pulling rank on the mayor, a North Side synagogue site is turning into a small neighborhood, and we’ve got the rundown. Council is going around Johnson on sweepstakes machines and stacking up housing units in Edgewater — City Hall politics are moving fast today. Let’s get into it. From Chicago Sun-Times:
A Chicago City Council committee has approved a ban on sweepstakes machines, over Mayor Brandon Johnson's objections. The move is aimed at increasing revenue from video gambling terminals and eliminating competition for them.
City Council committee voted yesterday to ban sweepstakes machines — those arcade-style gambling setups you see in corner stores and nail salons — and they did it over Mayor Johnson’s explicit objections. Sun-Times had it first. And the commissioner flagged that this could hit some neighborhoods harder than others — which, yeah, those machines are not exactly concentrated in Lincoln Park. That’s a real concern, and it got steamrolled for tax revenue reasons. The honest read here is the video gambling terminal lobby doesn’t want the competition. Council dressed it up as consumer protection, but this is about cutting out the competition so the licensed terminals get the dollars. Also — Brandon Johnson losing another Council vote. That’s a pattern now, not an incident. From Madison Savedra at Block Club Chicago:
EDGEWATER — Plans for the redevelopment of a lakefront synagogue are still being tweaked as the project team announced a new proposal for the campus last week. Leaders of Emanuel Congregation, 5959 N. Sheridan Road, are working with developer Fern Hill to reimagine a home for its place of worship that would add housing and retail to the lakefront-adjacent property.
Yesterday we were talking ADUs; today the housing fight moves to Edgewater, where Emanuel Congregation and developer Fern Hill are floating a four-building proposal on Sheridan Road — synagogue, retail, housing, the whole package. Lakefront-adjacent property, and a congregation that actually wants to add density instead of fighting it — this is how you do it. The 48th Ward should be pushing this through, not slow-walking it with endless community meetings. They went from two buildings in February to four buildings now, so the community meetings are clearly doing something — whether that’s refining the project or just adding floors to appease everybody, I’d want to know which. You’ll find links to all the stories we covered today in the show notes, so if something caught your ear, you can dig a little deeper there.
Thanks for listening. That’s The Chicago Daily Fix for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.