Updated: Winnetka Votes Down Affordable Housing Referendum

Of the 2,722 Winnetkans who voted in the affordable housing referendum, roughly 75.4 percent voted down the initiative. Meanwhile only about 25.4 percent of voters, or 692 people, were in favor of the objecitve.

"It's no surprise, the Village of Winnetka voted against affordable housing in 2005 when they voted for home rule, and just past summer 78 percent of the respondents to the caucus survey said they didn't want it." said Carry Buck, chair of WHOA, "This is what we expected and it's another landslide."

Earlier:

But, according to Gail Schechter, the executive director of the Interfaith Housing Center of the Northern Suburbs, the vote is an innaccurate gauge of Winnetkans sentiments towards the issue.

"Winnetka continues to have an affordable housing plan on file with the state of Illinois. Nothing has changed." Schechter wrote in a statement to Patch, "Objectively speaking, a relative handful of Winnetka voters took part in a primary election that mattered mainly to one party, and hence was innately skewed. In the voting booth, this unrepresentative sampling of village residents encountered a vaguely written referendum issue, presented without history or context. The results prove nothing about the state of opinion in Winnetka as a whole regarding the desirability of affordable housing. We are confident that in a general election – involving wide village turnout, in-depth prior debate, and a fairly and substantively worded proposal – the results would be dramatically different."

Stay tuned for more reactions to the vote.