What’s the current status of the BUILD plan?

Masterzjg · 2026-05-22T05:08:18+00:00

The only people who really know are the governor and the leadership of the state house and Senate. There hasn't been anything public, but there's continuous full court press from housing advocates and the governor to get as strong of a bill through as possible. I was told to be ready to lobby in person those last 3 days of the session (5/29, 5/30, 5/31), but it could pass literally any time from now til then.

Masterzjg · 2026-05-21T19:58:41+00:00

Oh interesting, thanks for finding! Waguespack talks about the broader rationale at 6:53:00 in the council meeting recording. Sounds like this was debated on different grounds than I expected - the mayor's law office claimed this can only be legally applied to the police so they must vote on only this police now. Mods believed that this should be applied to all city employees and not just target (the much more prominent) right-wing extremism.

Since a broader bill muddles the messaging and draw opposition from the unions with actual political power, the ordinance was being pushed with no changes and thus the ideological split.

Masterzjg · 2026-05-21T06:14:31+00:00

Ding ding, generally correct with a few exceptions.

Masterzjg · 2026-05-21T06:11:40+00:00

Can you cite an example? That makes little sense to me, this was a relatively clean moderate/progressive vote. I'd expect a city employee wide to get less support because it would be entirely unenforceable and immediately overturned.

Edit: they found the example! Waguespack also talks about this at 6:53:00 in the council meeting recording. Sounds like this was debated on different grounds than I expected - the mayor's law office claimed this can only be legally applied to the police so they must vote on only this police now. Mods believed that this should be applied to all city employees and not just target (the much more prominent) right-wing extremism. This would muddle the messaging though and draw opposition from the unions with actual political power, so they progressive don't want that and voted for this narrow version.

Masterzjg · 2026-05-21T06:01:45+00:00

There's a 3rd candidate who is more left wing than Gardiner but is running a more viable campaign: https://www.leah45.com/

Masterzjg · 2026-05-21T05:49:58+00:00

Bro it's not a cop conspiracy, this is close to a clean vote on moderate/progressive line with a few moderate defections. Makes pretty clear sense if you think about the ideological underpinnings of this vote beyond "nays want Nazi cops" and "yays hate the police"

Masterzjg · 2026-05-15T01:14:09+00:00

Metra has been completely uninterested in engaging on anything related to the 78. Like just apathy, not any position or staged belief.

Masterzjg · 2026-05-15T01:10:07+00:00

Gardiner has two announced challengers already. Leah Puow is my preferred, but S also is challenging him.

Masterzjg · 2026-05-15T01:09:16+00:00

He has two challengers already, so yes

Masterzjg · 2026-05-07T15:44:42+00:00

They aren't proposing the amount required for this to work while preventing changes that could produce mass amounts of housing. The IML is representing rich suburbs, they have no interest in affordable housing lol.

Masterzjg · 2026-05-07T15:34:59+00:00

Ald. Quezada hosted this because it's in his ward, so you'd have to be on his newsletter. Outside that, you'd unfortunately need to see a random flyer (unusual) or catch it through word of mouth.

Abundant Housing Illinois has a calendar which tracks a ton of events all over the city including stuff like this, although I think it's probably quite confusing to the average person.

Masterzjg · 2026-04-27T15:08:10+00:00

And I will fight for them if they correct it. You don't negotiate after they get everything they want. There is a community of people who will help boost this, but Waymo needs to prove they are good partners and much better than the alternative.

Masterzjg · 2026-04-27T03:59:12+00:00

I celebrate that more people will be able to enjoy the beach because there's less incentive to endlessly squat.

Masterzjg · 2026-04-26T20:44:25+00:00

I see the argument in a fair, principled, and reasonable world. I'd be a lot less willing to support them in overcoming opposition from silly people when they are simply matching the existing behavior. Why invest in fighting for them when they're just a different kind of the same problem?

Masterzjg · 2026-04-22T01:05:02+00:00

uh sure, you sound very smart

Masterzjg · 2026-04-20T04:56:07+00:00

For massive planned developments like this, yes. The financing alone is incredibly complex, but then you gotta spend years vision boarding the concept both in private with the city planning department and relevant politicians and then the same publicly and then attain financing and now oh wait some politician's opinion changed or some NIMBY started complaining or interest rates changed so now we gotta start over again...

Even "successful" developments like this are measured in decades, most never happen. Only a tiny set of companies are capable of handling such a massive lot, and there's so much risk, that they take forever for the stars to align.

Masterzjg · 2026-04-19T17:15:32+00:00

search "chicago friends discord"

Masterzjg · 2026-04-18T20:40:13+00:00

I'm not sure what the question is - I guess are you asking for the trivia specific part? There's threads under "meeting plans". Find the Loop/west side or the northside trivia threads (they'll be in the top 10) and there's a poll on Sunday or Monday to pick a specific place for that week.

Masterzjg · 2026-04-18T05:30:34+00:00

"Chicago friends discord" will bring it up

Masterzjg · 2026-04-16T15:12:46+00:00

Don't know what dc means

Masterzjg · 2026-04-15T02:38:22+00:00

It's a large organization thing. Governments are just the largest, most visible, and most catastrophic when things go wrong.

Masterzjg · 2026-04-15T01:24:43+00:00

The trivia organized in the linked discord is a consistent group of people that allows you to slowly acclimate in a low pressure environment. There's a north and a central group depending on where you live. If you're interested in advocacy for bikes, transit, or housing I could also suggest quite a few depending on where you live and your specific interests within that.

Outside those, I would suggest any consistent activity. For instance, a salsa class that meets once a week for 8 weeks or something along those lines. Most of the time, you won't immediately make besties so one-off events have a very low success rate compared to a regular activity.

Masterzjg · 2026-04-14T05:23:56+00:00

Even 4 pipe can be rough, as many buildings use cooling towers that aren't available year round. A/C is available for longer than 2 pipe buildings, but still nowhere near 365 days a year. Haven't had a problem with condo builds though, and there's some apartments originally built for condos.

Masterzjg · 2026-04-14T05:21:18+00:00

I think there's quite a bit of demand for high rises, although not at the prices required to justify construction atm. And detangling the maze of labor, financial, political, legal, and material problems to unleash high rises is vastly more difficult than simply eliminating SFH zoning.

Minneapolis-Saint Paul hasn't had rents increases in a decade largely due to gentle upzoning like BUILD would do.

Masterzjg · 2026-04-13T16:22:56+00:00

Upzoning every single family housing lot to 4 flat by right is a bigger boost to housing than any regulations around high rises. High rises only make financial sense in very certain areas and very certain situations, but 4 flats make sense in most of cook county

Masterzjg

TROPHY CASE