Chicago and HUD settle environmental racism case as Lori Lightfoot leaves office

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In one of her last acts before leaving office, Mayor Lori Lightfoot backed down from her previous tough stance and agreed to a deal on Friday to settle a federal Department of Housing and Urban Development investigation that found the town hall had indeed been committed for years to the environment. racism.

As part of the binding three-year deal with the Biden administration, Lightfoot has pledged that City Hall will reform its planning, zoning and land use practices.

This follows a HUD investigation that determined the City of Chicago discriminates against its residents by helping to get polluting businesses to relocate to low-income communities of color such as the Southeast Side, sometimes from wealthier and heavily white communities, notably Lincoln Park.

The Voluntary Compliance Agreement is the result of a civil rights complaint about a scrap metal operation on the Southeast Side. This complaint from community groups led to the HUD investigation.

Last year, HUD investigators accused the city of intentionally directing polluters into neighborhoods already overloaded with pollution and threatened to withhold tens of millions of dollars a year in federal funding if the city did not change its practices.

City departments, including those involved in planning and zoning, development, transport, buildings and housing, will be required to produce an Environmental Justice Action Plan by September 1 outlining how City Hall will take measures to protect neighborhoods from loads associated with heavy industrial and transportation uses. .

Environmental justice is broadly defined as the protection of low-income communities suffering from poor air quality and other health risks associated with inundation by a disproportionate level of pollution. He acknowledges that these areas have historically felt the brunt of dirty industry.

Mayor Lori Lighfoot pledged the city would conduct a city-wide assessment of the environmental and health impacts on neighborhoods that already have poor air quality and other pollution and that the results of the research will be used to design reforms.

Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times File

Lightfoot, who revealed some of the details in an executive order on Wednesday, also promised the city would complete a citywide assessment of environmental and health impacts on neighborhoods that already have poor air quality and d other pollution and that the results of the research will be used to develop reforms.

The purpose of this assessment is to describe how environmental loads, health conditions and social stressors vary across Chicago and to identify neighborhoods experiencing the greatest cumulative impacts from pollution, according to the agreement.

The pact also requires the city to engage with residents of affected communities with the goal of introducing an ordinance that will need to be approved by the Chicago City Council.

Chicago is listening to longstanding concerns expressed by environmental justice organizations and community members who have described how intensive industrial operations and commercial transportation are affecting their neighborhoods, health and quality of life, Lightfoot said in a statement. writing related to his decree.

HUD will monitor the city’s progress, and it will be up to incoming Mayor Brandon Johnson to ensure that efforts continue to meet promised reforms.

I will always be steadfast in my commitment to advancing environmental justice and improving the health of our residents and communities, Johnson said earlier this week.

At the heart of a complaint from three South Side organizations in 2020 was the planned move of the General Iron car and metal shredding operation from Lincoln Park to East 116th Street along the Calumet River.

Organizations complaining to HUD said the civil rights of neighborhood residents were violated by the move, which shifted a polluting nuisance from an affluent, mostly white neighborhood to a predominantly Latino community area surrounded by majority black neighborhoods.

The Lightfoots administration reached an agreement with General Iron and new owner Reserve Management Group which set out a timetable for the scrap metal business to be closed and relocated, but did not stress the benefits of the business for the community on the southeast side in this agreement. She ultimately refused the permit for the company, which Reserve Management is appealing.

Going forward, planning and zoning decisions will consider potential pollution from overburdened communities, and an environmental justice project manager will oversee this process, as part of the agreement with HUD.

Members of the groups who filed the complaint with HUD welcomed the pact.

Cheryl Johnson, executive director of People for Community Recovery, called the deal a new roadmap to fight environmental racism.

We are taking back our neighborhoods from the polluters, said Olga Bautista, executive director of the Southeast Environment Task Force.

HUD has entered into similar agreements with other cities about discriminatory practices, although many for different reasons.

HUD still has an ongoing but separate civil rights investigation related to the power Chicago City Council members wield to prevent low-income housing in their neighborhoods.

Brett Chases’ reporting on the environment and public health is made possible by a grant from the Chicago Community Trust.

READ THE AGREEMENT BELOW

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