Whenever civic leaders set out to tackle a problem, they first create a plan.
"The problem is, we've got lots of plans," LISC Chicago executive director Susana Vasquez told a City Club of Chicago audience recently. "It takes more than a plan to execute a vision."
Vasquez admits having participated in her fair share of plans - about two per year - during her decade in various roles at LISC, a nonprofit that helps poor neighborhoods, often through loans for the construction of affordable housing.
So what does Vasquez think are Chicago's most important but unfulfilled plans? What ideas are gathering dust in a three-ring binder somewhere that should be resurrected?
1. Retrofit all affordable and senior housing developments with Wi-Fi.
Source: Smart Communities Master Plan
The two-prong goal would be that all new affordable or senior housing developments in Chicago would be equipped with Wi-Fi access and older ones would be retrofitted. Lacking such broadband Internet access puts people at a competitive disadvantage.
One method of accomplishing this would be to create a smart-buildings fund, to which landlords and developers would apply for subsidies to help cover the cost of installing networks.
Another method would be to mandate that Section 8 landlords provide Wi-Fi access to tenants at reduced, regulated rates. Subsidies would still be deployed to cover the difference between the reduced rate paid by tenants and the market rate paid by the landlords.
The 2009 plan notes that thousands of units could be retrofitted with the cooperation of just three nonprofits: Bickerdike, The Resurrection Project and Greater Southwest Development Corp., which own and manage 1,272 units of affordable housing in the five communities targeted by the plan.
"I honestly don't know the answer for why this didn't happen," Vasquez said. "We didn't at the time push further to explore it, to further implement it. And that's on us."
Still, she said The Resurrection Project installed Wi-Fi in at least one new development, based on its involvement in this planning process.
2. Cannery Row Shopping Center
Source: Chicago Lawn Quality-of-Life Plan
Originally a can factory, this site at West 60th Street and South Western Avenue was redeveloped in the 1980s for retail but much of the land remains unused.
The neighborhood wanted this multi-block property modernized into a town center.
"Greater Southwest Development Corp. was part-owner, working with General Growth, working with Sears and Jewel and others to make the deal happen," Vasquez said. "Then General Growth filed for bankruptcy. The foreclosure crisis, always simmering in Chicago Lawn, hit real hard. Economic recession. Et cetera."
And the Jewel and Sears have closed.
No one can control those larger economic forces. But in the case of this project, Vasquez said several developers "are still there and working at it."
The shopping center at the former cannery was first targeted in the neighborhood's 2005 quality-of-life plan, part of LISC's New Communities Program. One year later, in 2006, those communities were asked to select the most important project in those plans, the Chicago Lawn neighborhood chose the shopping center.
Even with the recession, Vasquez said 11 of the 14 projects in the 2006 document have been realized, making the loss in Chicago Lawn all the more frustrating.
3. Better transportation access among neighborhoods, without going through downtown
Source: NCP Neighborhood Partnership for Chicago 2016
Many ideas in this plan didn't move forward because Chicago lost its bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics.
But Vasquez thinks the transportation recommendations should be implemented anyway.
The plan proposed three new "L" and seven new Metra stations as well as less costly solutions to connect neighborhoods, such as trolley service.
Trolleys have since been proposed for the museum campus as a way to connect the planned Lucas Museum for Narrative Art with nearby attractions, including Soldier Field and McCormick Place.
"We need everything you can think of to connect neighborhoods without making a journey to the Loop," Vasquez said. She noted the need for more bikeways, such as the elevated 606 trail, which are independent of the road system.
Since the 2008 proposal, key improvements such as a universal transit card and the Divvy bike-sharing program are in process or thriving. Yet other transit infrastructure, such as the Western-to-Fullerton leg of the No. 11 Lincoln Avenue bus, which serves a small business corridor, have been cut.
Meanwhile, Vasquez joked at the Club, "Planning for future plans is being planned."
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