Credit: Kevin Dooley

The first grant, and the highest award, was given to YouthBuild Lake County in the amount of $5,000. During 2009, Youthbuild began their first green building project to educate students on weatherization and energy efficiency in Chicago homes. The grant money will be used to advance the students’ education in thermal imaging and blower door testing.

Four different recipients each received $3,000: Goodcity’s Food Desert Action, Sunlight of the Spirit Rooftop Recovery Garden, Family Shelter Service and the Academy for Global Citizenship Elementary School. Goodcity plans on rebuilding a city bus into a biodiesel mobile food market to bring fresh produce to areas of the city that lack easy access to it. Sunlight is placing a rooftop garden on a building for recovering alcoholics and drug addicts, youth offenders and ex-offenders on electronic detention, not only providing the residents with fresh produce, but a location to train them in gardening techniques.

Family Shelter, which serves people affected by domestic violence, is performing energy audits of family shelter facilities to target areas for energy efficient retrofits. The Academy for Global Citizenship School received the grant to construct a lab to show the students how renewable energy and sustainable living is an economically beneficial financial investment.

Finally, the Fuller Park Community Development Corporation received $2,500 to build a walk and accessible observation point for the native prairie preserve in the Eden Place Nature Center on Chicago’s south side.

USGBC-Illinois

Late 19th Century buildings line West Chicago Avenue in the East Village District. Photo: Joe Marinaro.

Since the Appellate Court ruling, Chicago has not created a new landmark district. However, they continue to designate buildings at the usual pace. From 2006 through 2009, the city created three, four, two and two districts each year respectively. Jonathan Fine, executive director of Preservation Chicago, explained the slowdown to correlate with the real estate development market slowdown rather than the ruling. “What is missing in 2010 that we had in 2005 was the hyper-inflated real estate development market. It was that real demolition frenzy that was initiating these landmarking discussions at that time.”

Regardless of why the City of Chicago has slowed in creating districts, this case has the potential to affect other cities. Chicago uses seven standards to decide which buildings and districts to protect, typically using “significant” to describe a building or site of an important architect or historic event. Boston and New York City use similar language, potentially allowing any Chicago judgment to affect them. If the court strikes down the law, that could embolden property owners to challenge the landmark status of their property.

Judge Hall has divided the case in two: the challenge to the landmark law and the validity of two city landmark districts. Plaintiff’s attorney Thomas Ramsdell has called the two districts “arbitrary and capricious,” arguing that the ulterior motive to create them was to stop the spread of large new houses in the Arlington-Deming and East Village Districts. Chicago made a motion to dismiss the district challenge, which Judge Hall granted. Hall then is allowing Ramsdell until the August 27th hearing to amend his case.

The new technology would enable a network operating center to communicate with buildings’ facility management. This real-time view of building utility consumption and grid needs can highlight where usage is highest during peak demand, and where it needs to be reduced. By reducing their draw on the fluctuating power market, buildings would be paid back by the grid operators.

“There’s a huge opportunity here for corporations. Imagine if you were an occupied corporate facility, so you could actually control your occupancy,” said Maureen Ehrenberg, President of BOMA/Chicago. “Let’s say today was your company picnic. You know you can shut down. They have a lot more control than tenant-occupied office buildings. Corporations have a ton of flexibility and we’re hoping we can get some corporate occupiers to sign on.”

“One of the challenges is to implement these strategies in ways that cause no discomfort to the tenants,” said BOMA/Chicago’s Executive Vice President, Michael Cornicelli. “That’s paramount. Nobody’s talking about shutting off the air conditioning on a hot August afternoon. Maybe you dial it back a bit, maybe you extinguish some decorative lighting that’s non-essential.”

BOMA refers to the large-scale smart grid technology as a virtual power plant. The owners and managers association has about 260 building members with a peak energy demand of around one thousand megawatts. If their entire membership were to sign into the smart grid program, they could potentially reduce their combined power load by 20%. “Two hundred megawatts of load-shaving is the equivalent of a mid-sized coal-powered generating plant,” said Cornicelli.

The Koreans have pledged an initial round of investment for Illinois-based projects that will demonstrate smart grid business opportunities and advance research and development on technologies that produce a more efficient and reliable smart grid. The first phase will include deep energy audits on loop-area high-rises in order to set up a multi-building regulation services and energy efficiency project. By installing new technologies to network buildings and enable smart grid strategies—such as demand response and variable operations of building systems—large properties like the AON Center can reduce energy use and costs by hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.

Later phases of the partnership will address grid security and workforce training. The Illinois Institute of Technology and ADICA, LLC will build out its professional training and development programs in this sector to solidify Illinois as a hotbed for education and training opportunities in the smart grid sector. Through a global partnership with the Korea Electrical Engineering and Science Research Institute, this center will bring industry professionals from around the world to IIT to develop new strategies and techniques for business innovations that will result from the deployment of a smart grid.

Hoff is one of the most decorated firefighters in department history and is one of a handful of firefighters to win the department’s highest award for bravery—the Carter Harrison Award—two times. In 1984, he suffered severe burns from an attic collapse and spent 21 days in the burn unit.

“As we all know, bravery never goes out of fashion,” said Alderman Burke (14th) as he spoke in favor of the nomination.

Hoff is a third generation fire fighter whose father, battalion chief Thomas Hoff, died at age 44 in the line of duty on February 14, 1962, during a building collapse. His grandfather and brother also were Chicago firefighters.

Hoff has served as a University of Illinois field staff instructor since 1988, and has extensive training in structural collapse, fire safety and Haz-Mat response. He served as the Incident Commander for the fire department’s deployment to New York post-9/11 and to New Orleans for Hurricane Katrina.

Prior to serving as a fire fighter, Hoff served as an Emergency Medical Technician. He and his wife, Joyce, live on the Southwest Side. He has two children and five grandchildren.

View a video of the announcement here.

Patricia Muscarello v. Ogle County Bd. of Commissioners, Nos. 08-2464 & 09-1381 Cons. (N.D. Ill., W. Div., June 24, 2010) Affirmed

At the Action Assembly, LAC aims to make progress on affordable housing by bringing together Section 8 residents, neighbors who want to see more diversity in their neighborhood and decision-makers to highlight the need to preserve old and create new affordable housing. Alderman Burnett will also be present to speak about his Sweet Home Chicago Ordinance, which will make 20% of all Tax Increment Financing (TIF) funds available for affordable housing.

Community residents need better access healthcare and LAC is working to bring that about through partnering with local hospitals and doctors to bring a health center to the neighborhood. Additionally, they will ask state legislators to work with them on a charity care solution that meets the needs of all stakeholders.

Too often residents fighting for affordable housing and healthcare lack the resources to invest in weatherization and other green programs that can save money and better the environment. LAC is promoting a more streamlined process for low-income buildings to receive federally funded stimulus money allocated for large-scale weatherization projects.

Founded in 1993, LAC is a non-profit, multi-issue community organization that fights for justice, solidarity and diversity. The Coalition is comprised of 43 institutional members, including religious congregations, non-profit agencies, banks, business associations, a credit union and a senior citizens caucus. These diverse institutions are stakeholders in the Chicago communities of Lakeview, Lincoln Park and North Center.

Since it’s founding, LAC has steadily and consistently brought about changes that promotes justice for the underserved residents in the community. Some prominent accomplishments include bringing Marah’s Place (a women’s transitional housing program) to Lakeview along with support for the preservation of the Lincoln Park Community Shelter and renewing Section 8 affordable housing contracts at Lincoln Park Plaza and Webster House.

For more information, visit the Lakeview Action Coalition website.

The Smart Ideas New Construction service offers financial incentives of up to $150,000 per project, as well as design incentives for eligible projects in the Comprehensive Track. The program also offers free technical assistance to identify ways to save energy and lower operating expenses, which can increase property value while reducing the building’s environmental impact.

The service features three approaches to allow participation by customers in various stages of design and with various design features. Large buildings early in the design process can take advantage of whole building energy modeling and incentives while midsize buildings and renovations with limited opportunities can participate in the streamlined Systems Track for lighting and HVAC components. There are also incentives available for small building owners looking to integrate lighting and daylighting designs that reduce the amount of energy consumed.

For more information, visit ComEd’s website. For questions or to discuss a specific project you are working on, call the ComEd Smart Ideas New Construction team at 888-806-2273 or e-mail ComEdSmartIdeas@ecw.org.

While areas like West Englewood received $33,000 in TIF funds between 2004 and 2008, the 2nd, 27th and 42nd Wards—those that encompass the city’s central business district—shared roughly $626 million of the total $1.5 billion spent in that time, or about 43 percent.

The TIF program has become one of the main sources of funding for basic infrastructure improvements, but it seems not all wards enjoy these benefits. And poor areas aren’t the only ones being left out; middle-class bastions like Chatham, Beverly and Rogers Park don’t get much investment either.

The Reader’s breakdown found that about a quarter of all TIF spending, or $358 million, went to a single ward, the 2nd, an area defined by the Loop and the near south and west sides. This accounts for more than the bottom 35 wards received altogether.

The TIF program works by freezing property taxes for a span of time—usually 24 years—and if property values there rise, the extra money goes into an escrow account. The higher the property values in the district, the fatter the TIF account grows. The city has created TIF districts in “blighted” portions of the Loop, such as the LaSalle Street financial corridor, the gentrified near west and south sides, Wicker Park and even Lincoln Park. As property values in these areas climb, they generate more income.

By contrast, if a poorer community fails to increase in property value, no number of TIF districts can aid it. And any extra tax revenue that might have been collected and spread around the city from, say, the Loop stays in the Loop. The administration’s reliance on TIFs as the city’s main economic development program results in rich neighborhoods getting more investment and poor neighborhoods receiving less.

Visit The Reader for a more complete breakdown of where TIF dollars went.

The site is currently home to an apiary managed by Wild Blossom Meadery & Winery, but not much else. Many plans have come and gone since U.S. Steel shuttered the foundry in 1992. The McCaffery plan is the first to really have legs and an infusion of TIF money would certainly give development a needed boost.

TIF subsidies invite polemical debates because they siphon property tax dollars away from school districts and apply them to development and building projects. Critics argue that many of the developments greased with these funds would have gone ahead anyway, amounting to waste, if not abuse, of the public coffers. McCaffery claims that any TIF money given to South Works would all go towards base improvements that would be needed for any development of the site. A dearth of water supply, streets, power grid and other infrastructure requisites, they argue, must be met before the first foundations can be laid.

With or without public funding, construction won’t begin until at least 2013, with commercial tenants moving in the following year. If completed as planned, the entire 530-acre lakefront site would comprise over 13,000 residential units, 17.5 million square feet of commercial space and a 1,500-slip marina. The massive property is comparable in size to the Loop and completion of all phases would likely take decades and billions of dollars.

South Works has an ideal location along the shores of Lake Michigan, but other issues have created not just fallow real estate, but a virtual no-man’s land. Acres of slag left over from the site’s smelting days have made much of the land infertile. The Illinois Department of Natural Resources shipped tons of sediment from Peoria dredged from the Illinois River to act as topsoil.

Many of the plans for improvement of the brownfield are still in their infancy. Some of the proposed green features are a central, walkable business district, wind power generation, integrated public transportation and the return of the streetcar.

Added:
9-68-025 Soldier Field Area Parking Permits (Restricted Parking Permits and Regulations)