Bruce Deason This is Me

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1. 1. NW Builder Magazine

   www.nwbuilder.org/_archives/20 - [Cached]

   Published on: 8/5/2002   Last Visited: 8/5/2002

   For Bruce Deason, director of governmental affairs for the Obtainable Housing Alliance of Greater Chicago, the real concern is the myriad other provisions that weren't addressed in the original new changes that may come to pass once the door to accessibility is opened.
   
   Ackerman says builders have an inherent fear of regulatory changes.
   
   Experience tells me people panic when they hear 'accessibility,' he says. They think, 'God, we have to make a big change.' Well, no, you don't have to make a big change. If they would look at what the disabled community is asking for, they'd see that on many of these things they're already code-compliant. For example, he points out, visitability asks for 32-inch hallways. Most fire codes already call for 36 inches.
   
   Builders say the soft costs such as replacing stock plans that will become obsolete, educating employees on the changes, and losing square footage to widened hallways will push housing prices up.
   
   While the two sides differ on the ultimate cost of accessibility in new houses, they agree that the cost of retrofitting is high. Estimates commonly range from $5,000 to $20,000.

2. 2. River Forest Seeks to Zone Out the Middle Class

   planningcommunications.com/rf/ - [Cached]

   Published on: 5/10/2005   Last Visited: 10/2/2006

   Bruce Deason, then Senior Director of Government Affairs for the Attainable Housing Alliance, (630/932-2304) vowed to bring legal action against this new exclusionary set of zoning provisions. He noted that had his organization known that River Forest, last year, had adopted an two-year moratorium on building multifamily units less than 2,600 square feet in size, the AHA would have filed suit against that illegal moratorium.

3. 3. Developers responding to impact fees ruling

   www.dailysouthtown.com/southto - [Cached]

   Published on: 7/21/2002   Last Visited: 7/21/2002

   The Attainable Housing Alliance, a Chicago-based nonprofit organization dedicated to assisting housing developers, is one group on a mission to make sure developers pay only their fair share, said Bruce Deason, the group's senior director of government affairs.
   
   The Newark appellate court ruling is a victory for developers, Deason said.
   
   "We think it's an interesting decision that backs up a point we've been making for some time," Deason said.
   
   Over the past 10 years, Deason has seen impact fees increase by thousands of dollars. That translates into higher home prices, he said.
   
   That the state has yet to address the problem of school funding shouldn't mean developers end up shouldering the big bills for schools, Deason said.
   
   Lawyer Francke, who works on cases for Deason's group, has a case pending against McHenry County alleging the county is violating state law by imposing impact fees on developers to cover the cost of school construction, similar to the situation in Newark. In others, he's trying to recover fees already paid, he said.
   
   There is a limited window of time to file suit, he said. Taxing bodies are only liable for returning illegally collected money for up to five years, Francke said.
   
   Most municipal attorneys for non-home rule towns are not concerned about their impact fee laws being challenged.