Teacher and student find themselves on opposite sides in the ongoing and controversial debate over affordable housing in Winnetka.

A recent report from the North Shore-Barrington Association of Realtors opposes the proposal Winnetka officials have been debating. The report’s author — the group’s Government affairs director, Howard Handler — happens to be a former student of one of the Winnetka plan’s biggest proponents — Gail Schechter, executive director of the Interfaith Housing Center of the Northern Suburbs.

Schechter taught Handler in her 2007 “Interest Groups” course for Northwestern University’s School of Continuing Studies, in the Master’s in Public Policy and Administration program.

“I gave him an ‘A,’” Schechter recalled. “He was a really good student, but that doesn’t mean I agree with him on this.”

Handler and the NSBAR say the Winnetka affordable housing plan would ironically increase housing costs — pushing out the people it claims to support — and result in increased or new taxes, regulations and fees on current property owners.

Schechter called Handler’s report “rife with falsehoods.”

“They’re saying that the plan calls for all of these fees and taxes, and it does not,” Schechter said.

The affordable housing plan contains several components which the Winnetka Village Council first discussed April 12 as part of an ongoing process.

The plan’s most controversial components — and the ones that the Associations of Realtors highlighted — are still under consideration by the council.

The most divisive portions of the plan include: Recommendations that the village create “inclusionary zoning,” which would require 15 percent of newly built residential spaces in multi-unit buildings to be affordable; the creation of both a community land trust, to act as an ownership mechanism for holding affordable units, and a housing trust fund, which would provide a source of funding to promote affordable housing goals.

The Winnetka Plan Commission report outlining the proposed affordable housing plan lists a variety of funding sources for the housing trust fund, such as “real estate transfer taxes, linkage fees, tear-down fees, inclusionary zoning fees‐in lieu, development impact fees, building permit fees and external sources such as donations, bequests and grants.”

“They’re simply listed for information purposes,” Schechter said, noting that the Village Council will ultimately decide whether to create a trust fund and what mechanisms to fund it.

She thinks private sources are most likely.

“I think that’s what would politically fly, at least until the economy turns around,” Schechter said. “I mean, I’d put money into a Winnetka affordable housing fund. And I think a lot of people would be glad to do it.”

Handler said he supported the notion of using private money for a possible housing trust fund.

“But when there’s no philosophy behind the funding mechanisms other than to grab money from whoever they can regardless of spreading the burden around, it’s pretty unfair,” he said.

Transfer taxes and tear-down fees would unfairly target owners of older housing stock, Handler said.

“Those are most likely to be torn down or to be redeveloped,” he said. “Who’s to say that these people are rich? And if you own a 90-year-old house in Winnetka and you’re in your 80s and you’re looking to move on to a condo and you’re going to sell your property and you’re counting on that income (to fund the move) … I don’t know if that’s taxing the rich.”

Conversely, Handler said, younger potential residents could be burdened, as well.

“If you’re on the margin, like a young professional making $70,000 or $80,000, which this plan purports to help, if you implement a transfer tax which increases the cost to buy the house or building fees or taxes, the housing costs are going to go up and you’re going to push people out of Winnetka,” he said.

Handler said it would be more advisable to spread the burden out among the entire community.

“To be honest, property taxes would be the fairest way, if you’re going to use taxpayer dollars at all or some sort of government funding,” he said.

Schechter said the plan doesn’t recommend new taxes, and that Handler is latching onto such ideas as “fear-mongering.”

“He has a certain style that makes everything look like it’s a given,” Schechter said. “They’re not calling for any new taxes. Never once in any of the meetings that I was at ever advocated for a new tax, like a tear-down tax, or anything.”

On inclusionary zoning, Handler argues that requiring a property owner to sell 15 percent of new units in a multi-unit developer at prices below market value in order to be considered affordable would increase the cost of the other 85 percent.

“In order to make (the affordable units qualify as affordable), they’re going to increase the price the other units, which is going to price people out,” Handler said.

Schechter’s said Handler is mistaken.

“That never happens. No one charges more than what the market can bear. Nobody. They won’t pass the cost on to the other units,” she said.

In order to help subsidize the developer’s loss, the village can “sweeten the pot” by allowing an additional unit in the development at market price than what was originally proposed, Schechter said.

“It’s called a density bonus,” she said. “That’s what Highland Park does.”

Winnetka is an attractive place for potential developers, she added.

“A developer would really love to build at any site in Winnetka,” Schechter said. “They’re going to do it. It’s still going to make a lot of money. It’s something that a developer will do.”

Handler and his former teacher agree on some issues relative to the affordable housing plan, such as its call for a change to village ordinance that would again allow owners of coach houses to rent them and a plan to encourage apartments above downtown storefronts.

“Those are very good ideas that make sense,” Handler said.

Those were also components of the plan that the Village Council forwarded to staff in order to draft ordinances for it to consider at a future meeting. Other affordable housing plan components — inclusionary zoning and the ideas of a community land trust and a housing trust fund — were sent back to the Plan Commission for additional study and cost/benefit analysis.

Handler was also quick to separate his criticism of the affordable housing plan from other opponents in Winnetka who have said it could result in Section 8 housing, a federal voucher program.

“I don’t think the plan has much to do with Section 8 housing,” Handler said. “If there’s an apartment building as we speak in Winnetka, someone could use a Section 8 voucher there already theoretically.”

Regardless, Handler called the current proposal “an expensive way to open up housing to new people.”

“We’re supportive of creating diverse housing options within the community, but increasing regulation and increasing the housing costs is only going to price people out of Winnetka,” he said.

Schechter countered that Handler is acting as representative for a group with its own interests at heart.

“You have to remember what their constituency is,” she said. “It’s North Shore Realtors who want to sell property. They don’t want anything that will reduce their commissions, and they of course want housing at the highest price point.”

In the opening of the Association of Realtors report, Handler writes that the group’s members are “not, by and large, developers or builders — our positions related to this issue are based on our continuous commitment to be a strong advocate for private property rights and a healthy real estate climate for the communities we serve, including Winnetka.”