Environmental Justice Advocates, City of Chicago, and HUD Sign Landmark Civil Rights Settlement to Overhaul Zoning Laws

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 
Contact:
Ivan Moreno, NRDC, imoreno@nrdc.org, 773-799-6455
Olga Bautista, Southeast Environmental Task Force, olga@setaskforce.org, 
Robert Weinstock, Director of the Environmental Advocacy Center at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, robert.weinstock@law.northwestern.edu, (312) 503-1457

Environmental Justice Advocates, City of Chicago, and HUD Sign Landmark Civil Rights Settlement to Overhaul Zoning Laws 

Advocates Sparked Federal Investigation that has led to Radical Change of Chicago’s Development, Zoning, and Land Use Laws, may have Implications for Major Cities Across the Country 

CHICAGO (May 12, 2022) -- Southeast Side environmental justice groups, the City of Chicago and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) have reached a landmark agreement today that will require the City to overhaul the policies that shape communities that have long been seen as sacrifice zones for industry. The first-of-its-kind settlement resulted from a federal civil rights investigation that was initiated by community organizations on the city’s Southeast Side when a notorious metal shredding operation proposed moving from the gentrified Lincoln Park neighborhood to the mostly working-class community of color. 

“Communities like mine that have been targeted and burdened by industry because of our social and economic conditions now have a new roadmap to fight back against environmental racism anywhere in the country,” says Cheryl Johnson, executive director of People for Community Recovery. “This settlement proves that we can not only create change in one of the most segregated cities in the country, but wherever there are sacrifice zones. This is a victory for all of us.” 

Despite a strong commitment to stop General Iron from moving their operation to the Southeast Side during initial Lightfoot’s mayoral campaign, community advocates sparred with her administration for years, eventually leading to a month-long hunger strike by teachers and community members. The agreement in the final week of Lightfoot’s term as mayor firmly commits the City to structural reforms that community advocates have fought to secure for decades. The actions described in the Lightfoot administration executive order issued on Wednesday are also built into this agreement to require city agencies to develop and implement significant reforms with a defined role for impacted communities.  The agreement creates both a blueprint and a ground floor for executive action from the Johnson administration.  

“In Chicago and many other cities, industrial siting and permitting decisions are made without regard to the cumulative impacts of pollution on fence line environmental justice neighborhoods,” says Keith Harley, Director of the Greater Chicago Legal Clinic. “Today’s agreement signals a fundamental, positive change in the way Chicago will make land use and permitting decisions, placing the health, safety and welfare of fenceline communities as the highest priority. This is a lasting contribution by passionate Southeast Side environmental advocates, dedicated federal officials and Chicago officials who are re-envisioning the ways communities, business enterprises and natural resources can co-exist and thrive.”

The agreement includes provisions that will reform the city’s zoning and land-use policies that have facilitated industry to move and accumulate on the city’s South and West Sides. Additionally, the City’s system of designating industrial corridors will be overhauled and designed using a public health lens and the City will complete a city-wide Cumulative Impact Assessment. 

"This agreement represents a historic change for Chicago, it will help us make our environmental and land use laws and policies more protective of our neighborhoods and more reflective of our neighborhoods' values,” says Robert Weinstock, Director of the Environmental Advocacy Center at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law.“But the ultimate success of this agreement will depend on City officials and City residents working together to implement its provisions. In its very terms, this agreement creates a binding floor for reforms -- not a ceiling -- and it specifically contemplates that the incoming Johnson administration may work with community groups to commit to even greater reforms that center equity and public health in environmental policy."

While the City will develop longer term changes to the City code based on that assessment, the City agencies will take more immediate actions toward reforming environmental permitting and enforcement, and community engagement, based on the Cumulative Impact Assessment.  Importantly, the agreement requires strong and specific mechanisms for participation by impacted communities in these policymaking processes.   

“Across the street from our neighborhood high school, there are factories, warehouses and facilities that threaten the health of our community every day,” said Olga Bautista, executive director of the Southeast Environmental Task Force. “For decades, if we’re able to stop one polluter, ten others would set up shop because the law helped them do it. Today, that all changes and we are finally able to breathe a sigh of relief that the root of the problem is going to be addressed. We’re taking our neighborhoods back from polluters.”  

The Chicago Southeast Side groups that filed the civil rights complaint pointed to decades of racist zoning and land use policies that have furthered segregation and kept communities of color saturated with toxic industry. HUD  released findings in July of this year on their investigation that confirmed the basis of the civil rights complaint. The federal agency could have withheld hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding if the city refused to cooperate with the investigation process. This landmark agreement avoids that outcome and, instead, represents an historic shift in the way the City will interact with every neighborhood and offers protection from industrial pollution.  

“I was motivated by my son. I want him to be able to breathe and play without worrying about toxic chemicals hurting him,” says Gina Ramirez, Midwest outreach manager for NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) and the leader of the Southeast Side Coalition to Ban Petcoke. “Our vision leads us to fight for what every single Chicagoan should have, a safe and clean community, and we will continue to fight for that until we all can have that.”  

Southeast Side environmental justice advocates will work with the Johnson administration to implement the settlement and may continue to strengthen certain provisions including passing ordinances that address the cumulative impacts of pollution in Chicago's communities of color. 

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