Champaign Costco and Housing Update

This week there were a couple updates on subjects of a past and upcoming study session of the Champaign City Council. The study session on the reentry housing issue is still to be determined and discussed below. This week the Council had a study session on Costco coming to the Marketplace Mall location with tax incentives. From Wednesday's News-Gazette:

Excitement rules day at Champaign council's study session on Costco proposal
It was all giddy smiles and excitement at Tuesday's city council meeting as members discussed the prospect of a Costco coming to the area, a move some feel will be "a shot in the arm for Market Place Mall" as well as a regional economic driver for the area.

After Tuesday's study session on the issue, Costco consultant Ted Johnson said the wholesaler and Brookfield Asset Management — which owns Market Place Mall — are finalizing the purchase agreement for a new lot that includes the former Bergner's department store, its parking lot and two fields that front Neil Street.

Johnson said Costco hopes to finalize the agreement by the end of April, finish construction documents by May 15 and then make a project submission to the city in July. With the current agreement, Brookfield is supposed to start demolishing Bergner's in August or September.

More at the full article here. WILL had a good summary of the tax incentives in their updated coverage:

A sales tax revenue-sharing agreement with Costco won the unanimous support of Champaign City Council members Tuesday night. During a study session, council members endorsed a proposal to share $2.75 million in future tax revenue with Costco, if it builds on a site at Market Place Mall...

The proposal, as outlined in a memo to city council members, calls for Costco to be reimbursed with $2.75 million in sales tax revenue during a period of up to ten years, if it’s built at an “infill” location at the mall. That would cover most of the estimated $2.9 million in extra cost to Costco, if it were to build at the mall instead of a greenfield site.

The proposal projects that the store would generate a total of $7.1 million in total sales tax revenue within its first six years of operation. Sharing revenue with Costco would leave approximately $4.3 million in sales tax revenue for the city of Champaign.

More at that full article, including an audio segment here. WCCU also had coverage with a video segment here.


WCIA had an article and video segment on the reentry housing issue yesterday with a study session on that subject still to be announced.

Former felons may face fewer questions when looking for a home. It's part of an effort by the city council to help people through the application process, but some landlords think repealing part of the Human Rights Ordinance would do more harm than good...

Right now, landlords can ask possible tenants about felony convictions, but it could change. Vidovic says she's asked before and it gives her a better idea of what happened. But, that doesn't always happen.

Lawyer Yulanda Curtis says she's helped people who have been in this position and they weren't given the chance to explain. Instead, landlords would flat out refuse their applications...

Vidovic says, since she's been allowed to ask about the crimes, she's been able to help house former criminals and, in some cases, give them extra help.

"If I'm allowed to continue to ask the question, not only might I rent to her, but I might donate things for her and her family to make things a little easier."

But, Curtis says giving landlords a chance to ask at all keeps people in the same cycle.

"This is not supposed to be a perpetual punishment, our criminal justice system. We're supposed to punish these people and release them out into society."

Full article and video segment here. From an earlier Cheat Sheet post on this subject and landlords meeting with the City Council about it:

The issue has been raised throughout the community and local government in relation to criminal justice reform. They often highlight the role housing access has in recidivism as well as housing being a basic human need and one of the biggest obstacles for people reentering communities from the criminal justice system. Recently it was mentioned in the City of Champaign's Human Relations Commission during the Champaign County NAACP's report on criminal justice reform. It could also be a hurdle for the Champaign County Housing Authority's efforts in reforming reentry housing in the area, mentioned in January's Champaign County Reentry Council meeting that works with government agencies and organizations in criminal justice and reentry issues.

The rock and the hard place of this debate is the basic human need for shelter and the community's desire for safety. It's complicated by our community's continued problems with segregation, racial disparities in mass incarceration at every step of the criminal justice system (including local public school discipline), and the history of housing discrimination throughout Illinois.

You can hear various arguments for and against going back to the original language of the Human Rights Ordinance at the previous Champaign City Council study session on the issue here (video link here). The landlords generally argued safety of residents and being able to ask questions of renters for their own liabilities. The folks on the other side arguing for basic human rights issue and pointing to the previous language which mirrors Urbana's current rules.

The proponents of the broad protections against discrimination believe the landlords can ask questions that don't depend on data and results from a system that is discriminatory and disparate on race. Landlords argue that it's not discrimination on their part to rely on the government's own results. Where one draws the line on technical legality and ethics in support or opposition to changing the law on this issue can certainly differ, however. In putting the responsibility for any further racial disparities perpetuated in housing by relying on discriminatory government mechanisms, the issue becomes a bit of a Milgram's Experiment.

A rich versus poor angle also pops up, as wealthy criminals who can afford their own home and even be landlords themselves, are protected from discrimination on the same issue. While arguably that circumstance applies to a select few people, the proponents of ending the discriminatory language argue that's exactly the point. 

More at the full Cheat Sheet post, including links to local coverage here.