Conservation group seeks better protection for city's iconic lakefront
When the Chicago Bears revealed plans last April to build a big domed stadium just south of Soldier Field, the most ridiculous thing about the announcement wasn't its hyped, pep rally-like unveiling, or even the $1.5 billion in public infrastructure funds the team had the effrontery to request.
It's that the project was proposed for the lakefront at all. And that the city's lakefront protection laws are likely elastic enough to allow it to happen.
The conservation group Openlands has released a new report that includes calls for the city to update both the 52-year-old Lakefront Protection Ordinance and the Lakefront Plan of Chicago, while instituting better design review standards for large developments proposed near the lake.
The report isn't designed to blast the Bears stadium plan — a project that seems unlikely to be built on the lake, anyway, what with Springfield's lack of desire to fund the thing.
But given the constant churn of development proposed for the lakefront and the nearby neighborhoods that fall under the ordinance, now is a good time to rethink the laws that are supposed to safeguard the iconic waterfront.
"It's about jobs and workforce and taxes — and all of that is important," said Michael S. Davidson, Openlands' president and chief executive, of proposed lakefront developments.
"Nobody's asking questions about the implications of that particular development, the size, the scale, the intensity, vistas, the lakefront wildlife, the environmental ... implications," he said. "So it would be great if we could include that with the narrative, in addition to taxes and jobs."
Current safeguards are ‘largely subjective’
To be fair, the city's Planning Department, the Chicago Plan Commission, the City Council and the Chicago Park District all have review powers over development on and around the lakefront.
And there are nonprofits such as Friends of the Parks that have sued to protect the lakefront and the city's open space. Friends of the Parks, for instance, successfully fought the construction of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Arts in 2016, a project planned for the same spot as the Bears stadium.
But historically, if the funding is there and a strong mayor on the fifth floor wants the project bad enough, it's hard for elected and appointed officials with oversight of the lakefront to say no.
That's how Chicago wound up with Lakeside Center at 23rd and the lake, the revamped (and publicly funded) Soldier Field in 2003, and the Obama Presidential Center now being built over 19 acres of historic Jackson Park in the Woodlawn community.
The Openlands study outlines additional steps the city should take, including mandating environmental impact studies for all new development near the lake and requiring better notification of proposed projects so the public has more time to have its say.
"Right now, the [Lakefront Protection] ordinance, the [Lakefront Protection Plan] and the [approval] process ... is largely subjective," Davidson said. "So it makes sense for us, these many decades later, to go back and say, 'Is there something we can do now?'"
A conversation worth having
Davidson said Openlands plans to discuss its report with Mayor Brandon Johnson's administration, alderpersons and Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, the Chicago Park District general superintendent and CEO, who took over the post April 1.
And it's a conversation that's well worth having, provided it's followed by real change.
That's because the city has a long-standing bad habit of treating its parks and lakefront as land for potential development rather than areas of recreation, relaxation and respite from the hustle and flow of this big city.
Chicago has an incredible asset, one that has helped make the city world famous. It's time to better protect it.
Lee Bey is the Sun-Times architecture critic.