MPC’s Zoning Change Strategy
At MPC’s November Board Meeting, several board members asked for a brief explanation of our current zoning work. Board members also offered suggestions on how MPC might influence city policy with respect to the zoning remapping process. This summary provides both an update on our zoning work and discusses the steps MPC has taken to address the Board’s useful suggestions.
As the City of Chicago neared the conclusion of the text portion of its historic three-year effort to rewrite its 1957 zoning code, MPC considered the best way to involve community residents in a complicated process like zoning reform. Once the City Council passes the revised text, it will have to map the newly created zoning districts on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis. To help communities understand zoning, prepare for remapping, and give them a voice in how their neighborhoods develop, MPC designed a Zoning Change Strategy. It allows residents to identify assets and challenges in their neighborhoods in advance of the official remapping process. MPC targeted five communities for technical assistance: Rogers Park, West Town, East Village, Lawndale and Grand Avenue. Communities use maps, cameras, and logbooks to help them identify assets and challenges in the neighborhood.
MPC then analyzes the data collected by residents and makes recommendations on potential new zoning categories that would address the assets or challenges identified. Each community receives a master map and report discussing community-identified issues. West Town and Rogers Park are mid-way through their Zoning Change Strategy exercises.
MPC’s long-term goal for the Zoning Change Strategy is to persuade the City to adopt it citywide as the primary public participation vehicle for the remapping process. The text portion of the rewrite has consumed much of the city’s staff time, so there has not been much time to consider a remapping strategy. In addition to the Zoning Change Strategy, MPC updated its 1999 publication, The Lay of the Land, a national survey of cities engaged in a zoning reform process. This update focused specifically on how other cities approached remapping in hopes of providing the City with some guidance from around the nation.
The Zoning Change Strategy is designed to be a replicable model that neighborhoods can take on themselves. Collecting data on the neighborhood and taking pictures of assets and challenges is something most community groups can accomplish with a set of neighborhood volunteers. The data can be submitted to the Alderman to be used as part of the decision-making process. MPC will publish more information on the Zoning Change Strategy on this Web site soon..