Developers offered cheap city land to build market-rate homes in North Lawndale

Months after the city’s Parade of Homes program produced houses in Bronzeville that sold north of $500,000, the city is inviting developers to sign up for a similar campaign in North Lawndale.

The city’s planning department on Tuesday published an application for up to five developers to buy city-owned lots for $1 each along the western boundary of Douglas Park, as long as they build homes targeted toward buyers making up to 120 percent of area median income.

Under those constraints, a 3-bedroom single-family home could have a “maximum sales price” of $355,000, and a 4-bedroom single-family home could sell for no more than $400,000, according to the document.

Applicants would be applying through the City Lots for Working Families program, which offers cheap publicly-owned land on a lot-by-lot basis.

The city has picked 43 vacant properties to be developed during the next few years, all bound by Roosevelt Road, 21st Street, Albany Avenue and Troy Street. Under the program, the builders would coordinate building and marketing their homes in clusters, buying each city-owned vacant lot after they’ve closed a sale on their previous project.

City leaders are especially looking for “innovative designs” that would be “compatible with surrounding owner-occupied units” and “stimulate redevelopment in the North Lawndale community area.”

One of the city’s poorest neighborhoods, North Lawndale has been steadily losing population since its 1950s peak. But the area’s underlying real estate assets, including the 173-acre Douglas Park, have prompted some observers to predict the area is due for a comeback.

Bronzeville’s Parade of Homes program is moving into its second phase amid sharply rising property values and accelerating construction activity on the Near South Side.