Private School wants Imminent Domain?

Lincoln Square homeowner’s fight against city continues

By Jim Vail

Inside Booster

The battle of homeowner Raminder Chadha vs. North Park Elementary School over who has the right to the property he purchased continues.

Chadha purchased his home in Lincoln Square in 2008 and was ready to rehab his property when suddenly North Park, a private school located at 2017 W. Montrose, decided it wanted to expand and got the city to issue an imminent domain to seize his property.

Chadha said the city didn’t offer enough money for him to be able to sell and buy another house in the area that has seen house prices skyrocket over the years. He has been locked in a court battle ever since.

“It all started because I wanted to give our kids an education in the neighborhood,” Chadha told Hard Lens Media on Youtube. “So we found Lincoln Square/North Park and the school Coonley Elementary. At the time the house had fire damage, and was salvageable. We bought it, lost money, but wanted to rehab it. The school then wanted to purchase the property. If we sold we wanted to buy in the neighborhood and our kids could still go to the neighborhood school. Then we saw the school was collaborating with the City of Chicago to put violation after violation on our building to force us to sell.”

Chadha only found out about the violations from discovery in his lawsuit to hold onto his house. Those violations included accusing him of having a demolished garage that blighted the community, and weeds that were an inch or so above the city limit.

“They wanted the property and I didn’t want to sell it to them for the price (they offered),” he said. “So then (the school) started racketeering with the city with the violations.”

He also found out from the lawsuit discovery a series of emails from Chicago Board of Education members, who are handpicked by the mayor, saying they need to put this affair to rest before the owner finds out what they’ve been doing the past four months.

He paid the fines and thought everything would be according to the law. He said he didn’t know “the Chicago way.”

“I didn’t talk to (my alderman),” he said. “I thought I was doing everything honestly.”

This reminded me of my cousin’s problem with his house on the north side of Montrose on Campbell Ave. where my father grew up. He told me that a developer bought his neighbor’s house to rehab it. The developer was working round the clock keeping him up at night, the construction resulted in water and debris flooding his backyard and a giant fan was blowing dust into his house.

My cousin called his alderman’s office (Ald. Gene Schulter) to complain. When city workers showed up the next day, he was ready to explain in detail the problems resulting from the construction. Instead, the workers issued my cousin violations, including an illegal rehab of the attic completed more than 50 years ago. When he spoke further with the alderman’s office, he found out the developer had contributed to the alderman’s campaign and did not even have a proper city permit to perform the work. The office worker told him that most construction in the city is illegal.

Today, Ald. Ameya Pawar (47^th Ward) is backing the private school’s interest over Chadha, he said. Chadha said the alderman even blocked him on Twitter and ordered the ACLU to investigate Chadha, he said.

“The funny thing is the current alderman who is a Pritzker fellow at the U of C now is also supportive of the school as detailed by his giving them approvate to build a massive structure at the current site,” Chadha told News-Star in an email. “As for my interactions with the alderman, he has blocked me on Twitter even though I am a constituent and have not said anything derogatory to him.”

Because the city forced Chadha to demolish his house, his tax bill went from $8,000 per year had he been able to just rehab it, to $21,000 because it is new construction, he said.

“They didn’t allow me to rehab,” he said. “They were able to work with the alderman’s office and city building dept. to force me to demolish the house, so you make it new construction to build a new house and then you’re liable for new taxes.”

He said the city sued him for lead poisoning even though a report was never filed with the EPA. The EPA told him the city has much higher levels of lead than what they were accusing him of having. The city issued him a temporary restraining order, with the intent to stop him and force a sale, he said.

Chadha said he’s been in litigation for over four years and is running out of funds. The private school has deeper pockets and have worked with the alderman’s office and the city to “sell at a price I did not feel comfortable with.”

Another twist to the saga – North Park school – which is a private school that is tax-exempt but using the city to force the sale of property it wants to buy – got zoning approval from Ald. Pawar, “but the neighbors physically behind the school bandied together to hire a zoning attorney to fight the approval.”

Inside Booster contacted the alderman’s office and is waiting for his reply.