After serving on Evanston's Land Use Commission for over three years, 8th Ward resident Matt Rodgers is vying for a seat on the City Council, looking to unseat incumbent Ald. Devon Reid.
Rodgers, 57, a design and marketing professional by trade, grew up in rural Ohio and attended DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana before moving to Indianapolis and eventually to Chicago's Lakeview neighborhood.
By the time Rodgers was looking to buy a home in 2004, prices in Lakeview got too expensive, he said, so he looked north, first to Rogers Park but ultimately landing on a condo on Clyde Avenue in the 8th Ward.
Rodgers grew interested in zoning after working with his neighborhood in Lakeview on a survey while the neighborhood was debating similar upzoning proposals Evanston is now, finding it shared similarities and principles with design.
Once he moved to Evanston, he continued to study land use and eventually joined the city's Zoning Board of Appeals. After that, he began consulting privately on land use issues before former Mayor Steve Hagerty appointed him to the city's Plan Commission.
"If you think about it, really, design is design in whatever medium you choose," Rodgers said in a recent interview with Evanston Now.
Rodgers stepped down from the LUC last month to launch his campaign for office.
But why does he want to run for office in the first place?
Rodgers said he's been contemplating it for years, although he was friends with former Ald. Ann Rainey and never thought to challenge her.
But once Ald. Devon Reid was elected in 2021, Rodgers's itch for elected public service crept back into his mind.
"You're supposed to give back to your community in some way," Rodgers said. "I've been doing the things that I can do with land use and the zoning board ... It's been my way of giving back so far, but now I have the opportunity to do something at a different level."
Rodgers questioned Reid's commitment to the job, saying "I think one of the things is just being present ... People just don't know where he is, how engaged he is."
Rodgers said while he believes Reid is a "very smart individual" who has a "good grasp on policy issues," he said a key difference is that he believes people in the ward "need constituent service help they aren't getting."
Rodgers said he has a good relationship with most council members and has spoken to most if not all of them in recent weeks, especially while he was chair of the LUC leading the comprehensive plan and zoning code discussion.
He stressed the importance of what he called a "consensus council" that can find common ground on certain issues even if they disagree on other issues.
"I don't see that happening on council," Rodgers said. "I see a lot of council members who get up, throw out their idea and just see if anybody agrees with them, and if nobody does, then they get upset because you don't agree with me."
Rodgers said he would've likely supported Ald. Melissa Wynne (3rd) if she had run again but said he wouldn't be formally supporting any other council or mayoral candidates.
"I don't want to get into a lot of the ward politics of things," Rodgers said. "Anybody who's elected, I'll be able to work with them ... I've got a race in the 8th Ward to win."
"I think Howard Street has a lot of opportunity," Rodgers said. "We've started to see some growth there, but I think there's more that will happen along there."
He said COVID-19 hurt Howard Street's development, but said he wants to work on "getting economic vitality back to Howard Street" and work to make it as "thriving as Central Street or Main or Dempster ... because the potential is there for it."
He praised his ward as a "very, very diverse ward," both racially and economically and called the ward a "microcosm of Evanston," due to its diverse housing stock, proximity to Chicago and difference from many of the more single-family oriented wards.
Rodgers also said he hopes to bring better access to constituent services, something he said Reid had failed to do.
"I want to be able to be that person they can reach out to at any time and get a phone call back from me saying, 'Hey, I don't have your answer, but I'm going to work on it these sorts of things,'" Rodgers said.
Having chaired the city's LUC, there might not be any council member or candidate more familiar with the Envision Evanston 2045 comprehensive plan and zoning code rewrite than Rodgers.
Rodgers said he believes the city will grow over the next 20 years, but isn't hard set on a specific number or estimate.
"I think we will see growth, what that growth is, relies on a couple of different things," he said, listing quality schools, home prices and city amenities as key factors.
Rodgers said he doesn't think there's a lot the city can do on its own to influence growth and criticized the suggestion that the city can influence home prices.
"People will come because they find it an attractive place to live," Rodgers said. "And if it's attractive enough they will find a way to live where they can in the city."
He said he believes the city's tax request from its citizens is "not high" and has been consistent for years, saying "We can't say that's totally off the table."
"How do we prioritize the money that we do have," Rodgers said. "And not nickel and dime the public on ... every little thing."
"It's really difficult and awkward when the city tries to get into policing the free market because you're picking winners and losers," Rodgers said. "That's not fair, that's not the role city government should play."
"I don't like the four-unit suggestion at all," Rodgers quickly said when asked, agreeing with some opponents to the upzoning plan who say developers might come in and buy up homes to maximize profit.
He made his position known when he served on the LUC but often tried to taking the city council's requests into consideration when discussing issues.
Instead of four flats, Rodgers suggested two flats (duplexes) as an alternative.
"I would fully support, if people want to do single-family homes converting it into two units, easily making that into a staff-approval process," Rodgers said.
He said adaptive reuse of existing homes, if they can be, would be ideal, but said even allowing new two-flats to be built on residential lots is a better alternative and something he supports.
"It's going to be hard for a developer to come in and make money on two flats," Rodgers said, suggesting it won't lead to speculative buying of properties.
When it comes to affordable housing, Rodgers said he thinks the city needs to set an actual goal but be clear about what the goal actually means.
"I also think we need to have an expectation as to what is our goal for affordability in our city," Rodgers said.
"We've never really gotten that number ... do we literally just keep providing housing for [housing insecure] people ... or do we have a target where we want to reach this level of affordable housing as a city, and not necessarily that we cut if off then, but we no longer make it the priority it is right now."
The answer, he said, will require the city to be adaptive in its decision-making and be willing to change what doesn't work, should the comprehensive plan and zoning code be approved.
He said, "Putting the genie back in the bottle" would be difficult if the city moves to fast with upzoning.
Rodgers said he agrees with Mayor Daniel Biss who said the city should be leading the way for progressive change across the country, but he said, "We can't do it alone."
"We need to be partnering with Skokie, we need to be partnering with Chicago, with Wilmette, with Lincolnwood, with Niles," Rodgers said. "We can be the most ecologically friendly, most progressive city in the entire country, we aren't going to sway the needle that much because we just aren't big enough."
Working with others, Rodgers said, will help the city achieve not only its political goals but also its affordable housing goals and environmental goals.
"[Evanston] can lead but it needs partners to make real change."