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Chicago’s Administrative Approval Is Wrong for Its History
Tom Tunney’s Zoning Committee Should Not Approve Ordinance 02020–6185
Eighty years after Emmett Till’s life began, his hometown wants local Alderman to determine whether his childhood residence mattered because… parking. Ordinance 02020–6185, proposed by 4th Ward Alderman Sophia King, seeks to ban, require an aldermanic exception, or add a special use approval from the City of Chicago to any proposed museum or library within a residentially zoned property.
The ordinance will be voted upon in Chicago’s next Zoning Committee meeting on Tuesday, March 23rd.
If the City of Chicago has changed, this ordinance should not pass.
It is appropriate to present the upside and legitimate urban planning concerns which Ordinance 02020–6185 seeks to address. Alderman King’s newsletter on the issue states her reasoning behind the ordinance:
“Museums by their very nature are public attractions that may bring large numbers of people to them as well as affect traffic patterns and parking.”
Today, that justification puts at risk the Emmett Till & Mamie Till-Mobley Home, MOJO Muddy Waters House…
