Latest news with #DebConroy
Chicago Tribune
24-06-2025
- Business
- Chicago Tribune
DuPage to establish community land bank, trust to incentivize more affordable housing
More than two years after forming an ad hoc committee to augment affordable housing, DuPage County is taking a new approach to incentivizing low-cost development. The county is establishing a land bank. Authorized by the DuPage County Board last month, it will essentially put county-owned surplus land on reserve for future affordable housing projects. With DuPage being a virtually built-out county, the idea is to carve out space for more local affordable units by breathing new life into underutilized properties, county staff and officials say. 'People that work in DuPage and contribute to our economic stability (being) able to afford to live and raise their families here seems like it should be a fundamental right, but it's something that we're struggling with,' DuPage County Board Chair Deb Conroy said. 'We want to fix it.' The average median household income in DuPage County as of 2023 was $106,961, according to census data. Meanwhile, as of last month, the median sale price of a home in DuPage was $425,000, per data from Redfin, a national real estate brokerage. As for renters, the typical cost of rent in DuPage County in May was $2,113 a month, a 5.1% year-over-year increase, according to the Zillow Observed Rent Index, which measures changes in asking rents over time. Land banks have existed for a long time, said Paul Hoss, the county's planning and zoning administration coordinator. The concept just hasn't been implemented in DuPage before. The county is, however, uniquely primed to see the idea through. For years, DuPage has been building an inventory of county-owned property through its standing 'Neighborhood Revitalization Program,' which seeks to repair or remove dilapidated or abandoned buildings in unincorporated areas. Through the program, the owner of property in disrepair is given the chance to address issues on their own. If they don't, the county tackles the work and bills the property owner. If the owner abandons the property, the county puts a lien on it. Should that lien go unsatisfied, the county can seek to foreclose and could acquire the property as collateral for the unpaid lien. Alternatively, the county is sometimes just gifted dilapidated property through the program. Either way, DuPage has been able to accrue a 'de facto' inventory of property that can now act as a starting point for a land bank, Hoss said. Not stopping there, the county — hand in hand with establishing a land bank — will also be seeking to partner with a nonprofit community land trust (CLT), per board action taken last month. A community land trust is a similar mechanism to a land bank but instead of property, the CLT manages funds that can be loaned out to developers or property owners for the purpose of developing a certain type of housing that a government is looking for, Hoss said. The board has directed staff to prepare a request for qualifications to seek out a CLT. Both the CLT and land bank are the product of a recent effort to ramp up affordable and attainable housing throughout the county. In March 2023, Conroy established the Ad-Hoc Housing Solutions Committee to further the creation and expansion of DuPage's affordable housing stock. As part of that work, the committee engaged with Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm Grounded Solutions Network to partner with the county on its housing strategies and solutions. The effort, an 18-month venture, culminated in a comprehensive housing action plan. 'These folks helped us organize our thoughts and crystallize what we needed to do moving forward,' Hoss said. Grounded Solutions presented its plan at a board meeting earlier this spring, including pitches for a DuPage land bank and trust. District 1 Board Member Sam Tornatore said that since the creation of the Ad-Hoc Housing Solutions Committee, which he co-chairs, 'The progress has been significant.' 'It may not be as quickly as some people would want it, but we had to develop a foundation in order to get where we're at right now,' he said. With the county's new affordable housing strategies, Conroy said she especially hopes to make housing accessible more to the county's 'missing middle,' or those who make too much money to qualify for subsidized housing but not enough to afford market-rate housing or to buy a home. 'It affects (anyone) from college graduates to seniors downsizing to professionals that are in teaching or firefighting or police,' Conroy said. 'You know, those professions which are so important to the fabric of our communities, (they're) struggling to be first-time homeowners … here in DuPage (where) it's difficult to find anything under half a million dollars that has more than two bedrooms and maybe a bath and a half.' Conroy said she's 'incredibly proud of the investment that my board and staff have made into this.' 'It's been a very long process,' she said. 'It's taken a lot of time.'
Yahoo
09-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
All DuPage County residents can now text 911 in an emergency, officials announce
Residents across DuPage County can now text 911 in an emergency. The launch of the service was announced at this week's DuPage County Board meeting as part of a proclamation for National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week, which this year runs from April 13-19. 'Text-to-911 is a critical step forward in making emergency services more accessible and inclusive,' County Board Chair Deb Conroy said Tuesday as she announced the program. Residents should still call 911 if possible, officials say, but text-to-911 will allow them to reach telecommunicators in situations that do not lend themselves to a voice call, such as assistance for someone who is deaf, hard of hearing or speech-impaired, situations in which it would be unsafe to call 911 or medical emergencies that render someone unable to speak. The program has been in the works for about six months across two of the county's three Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs), according to Greg Schwarze, District 6 County Board member and chair of the county's Emergency Telephone System Board. The county's PSAPs are the Addison Consolidated Dispatch Center (ACDC), DuPage Public Safety Communications (DU-COMM) and Naperville's Emergency Communications Center. Naperville instituted a text-to-911 service in September 2021, according to city spokeswoman Linda LaCloche. With the county's launch Tuesday, ACDC and DU-COMM are following suit, Schwarze said. Regionally, Will County implemented text-to-911 in 2015. Aurora instituted the service in 2016. Statewide, 140 out of 176 PSAPs across Illinois — nearly 80% — are accepting or in the process of allowing text-to-911, according to an Illinois State Police spokesman. DuPage officials commended the local adoption of the service at their meeting Tuesday. District 5 Board Member Dawn DeSart, D-Naperville, called text-to-911 a 'game-changer,' noting that she knows firsthand the value in the program. 'Four years ago this week, I couldn't breathe,' she said. 'Turns out I had double pneumonia, but I could not breathe and there was no text-to-911 (where I was) at that time. … I kept calling and hanging up just to get word out that I needed help.' The system is compatible with mobile carriers such as AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile and works on any text-capable device, including smartphones and tablets. Dispatch centers cannot receive photos, videos or emojis. To participate in the service, start by typing '911' in the 'to' or 'recipient' field of a message, which should also include the sender's exact location and what kind of emergency help is needed. Officials advise texting short messages without abbreviations or slang. They also say to be prepared to answer questions and follow instructions from telecommunicators. More information on DuPage's text-to-911 service can be found at tkenny@
Chicago Tribune
09-04-2025
- Health
- Chicago Tribune
All DuPage County residents can now text 911 in an emergency, officials announce
Residents across DuPage County can now text 911 in an emergency. The launch of the service was announced at this week's DuPage County Board meeting as part of a proclamation for National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week, which this year runs from April 13-19. 'Text-to-911 is a critical step forward in making emergency services more accessible and inclusive,' County Board Chair Deb Conroy said Tuesday as she announced the program. Residents should still call 911 if possible, officials say, but text-to-911 will allow them to reach telecommunicators in situations that do not lend themselves to a voice call, such as assistance for someone who is deaf, hard of hearing or speech-impaired, situations in which it would be unsafe to call 911 or medical emergencies that render someone unable to speak. The program has been in the works for about six months across two of the county's three Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs), according to Greg Schwarze, District 6 County Board member and chair of the county's Emergency Telephone System Board. The county's PSAPs are the Addison Consolidated Dispatch Center (ACDC), DuPage Public Safety Communications (DU-COMM) and Naperville's Emergency Communications Center. Naperville instituted a text-to-911 service in September 2021, according to city spokeswoman Linda LaCloche. With the county's launch Tuesday, ACDC and DU-COMM are following suit, Schwarze said. Regionally, Will County implemented text-to-911 in 2015. Aurora instituted the service in 2016. Statewide, 140 out of 176 PSAPs across Illinois — nearly 80% — are accepting or in the process of allowing text-to-911, according to an Illinois State Police spokesman. DuPage officials commended the local adoption of the service at their meeting Tuesday. District 5 Board Member Dawn DeSart, D-Naperville, called text-to-911 a 'game-changer,' noting that she knows firsthand the value in the program. 'Four years ago this week, I couldn't breathe,' she said. 'Turns out I had double pneumonia, but I could not breathe and there was no text-to-911 (where I was) at that time. … I kept calling and hanging up just to get word out that I needed help.' The system is compatible with mobile carriers such as AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile and works on any text-capable device, including smartphones and tablets. Dispatch centers cannot receive photos, videos or emojis. To participate in the service, start by typing '911' in the 'to' or 'recipient' field of a message, which should also include the sender's exact location and what kind of emergency help is needed. Officials advise texting short messages without abbreviations or slang. They also say to be prepared to answer questions and follow instructions from telecommunicators. More information on DuPage's text-to-911 service can be found at
