Close

DNAinfo/Ted Cox

CITY HALL — Charges flew back and forth Thursday at an informational hearing before the Commission on Chicago Landmarks concerning a "rotted" 19th-century house protected within the Old Town Triangle Historic District.

Ald. Michele Smith (43rd) led the way, accusing the owner of a controversial building at 1720 N. Sedgwick Ave. of reflecting "a disturbing trend ... to leave the properties without any maintenance essentially to try to allow the house to deteriorate and take the easy road to demolition."

Smith charged that owner Joseph Younes "knew full well the condition of the building" when he took control of it in 2015 "and then took steps, we believe, to make it even worse."

Smith was backed by commission staff architect Cynthia Roubik, who said Younes had gone beyond the scope of a building permit to fix the foundation late last year when the roof was removed and the building left exposed to the elements.

But Younes disputed those claims.

Close

DNAinfo/Ted Cox

"The city has its view," he said. "There's always two sides to the story." Younes accused the previous owner of dragging out the sale for eight years and allowing the house to "deteriorate" and become rat-infested. He said he complained to Smith during that process "and she took no action whatsoever."

Younes has previously insisted the building naturally "rotted" with age.

Who should turn up at the hearing, however, but previous owner Richard Daniggelis. "Oh, I love this," he said. "I just love this."

Maintaining that he was still the rightful owner of the building, Daniggelis said, "That house, every inch, is precious to me."

Bought by his grandfather in 1911, it was the home the 78-year-old was brought home to as an infant.

"It was fine. The roof was fine," he said. "That foundation was solid," he added, as it was poured by his father in 1960 with elements of steel mixed in.

"I was evicted because of the falsification of documents," Daniggelis charged, adding that he was still pursuing the case in court.

Commission Chairman Rafael Leon told Daniggelis he believed him, but that his claims were irrelevant to the matter before the commission, which was not scheduled to take any action regarding the house Thursday.

Even so, the case laid out against Younes for violating protections within the Old Town Triangle Historic District had potentially dire consequences for him. Lisa Misher, of the city Law Department, acknowledged that "demolition by neglect" was a "tricker subject" to deal with than the norm legally, but said it left Younes open to fines of $1,000 a day and a moratorium on any new building on the property.

Leon called the fine "pretty substantial."

"The moratorium provision is very powerful," Misher added, in that the city could disallow any new construction on the property for five years if it were shown that Younes allowed it decay to the point where demolition was necessary.

Ward Miller, executive director of Preservation Chicago, said the home should be preserved and restored, adding he fully supported the city and the commission in seeking to protect the house, built shortly after the Great Chicago Fire in 1871 as the city expanded north.

Younes insisted he "didn't want to demolish the building, wanted to save the building." Granting that work had exceeded the permit as "an error on my contractor's part," he said, "The roof was falling apart" and that his contractor "took the initiative to take it down" and "remove a dangerous condition."

"Everything that was done needed to be done," Younes said. "It's our intention to put the property back exactly the way it was before — exactly the way it was before."

Daniggelis scoffed at that, calling the house's decay an "abomination" and saying, "He should be penalized $1,000 a day — at least!"

The commission did not take any action Thursday, but the city has already had a temporary receiver appointed in court to take charge of the building and protect it as best as possible, and another court hearing on the matter is scheduled for April 27.

Close

DNAinfo/Heather Cherone

CITY HALL — Of the 804 new Chicago Police officers hired in 2017, 41 percent are white, according to data provided to aldermen Thursday. Some 35 percent are Hispanic, 17 percent are black and 7 percent are Asian.

That's evidence, says Ald. Anthony Beale (9th), that process the department is using to hire more than 1,000 new officers by the end of 2018 "systematically discriminates" against black and Latino Chicagoans.

"If we don't hurry up and change this process, we are going to have a problem," Beale said.

The Police Department's 2018 budget includes $65 million to fund the second and final phase of an effort to hire nearly 1,000 officers to stop a surge in violence that swept the South and West sides starting in 2016 — a goal Supt. Eddie Johnson said he would achieve.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel vowed to ensure that those new officers reflected the city's multicultural makeup, and his office repeatedly trumpeted the fact that 76 percent of the 14,200 people who applied to the police department earlier this month were black, Latino or Asian.

Commenting on the racial data revealed Thursday, "That does not make sense,"  adding, "The test discriminates systematically against minorities."

Many African Americans fail to make it through the hiring process because they have poor credit ratings, often times because they have failed to make a payment on a student loan, Beale said. That creates a vicious circle where people can't get a job, and fall behind on their bills — and then can't get a job because of the missed payments.

"This has been burning my ass for years," Beale said.

Overall, the department is 48 percent white, with black and Latino officers each making up 24 percent of the department, according to CPD data. Asian officers make up 4 percent, according to the data.

The overall city makeup in 2016 was 32.6 percent white, 29.7 percent Hispanic, 29.3 percent black and 6.3 percent Asian, according to the U.S. Census.

Ald. Tom Tunney (44th) urged the department to redouble its efforts to recruit Asian officers, especially those who belong to the Muslim faith in order to serve a growing community in his North Side ward.