OLD TOWN — The Near North Unity Program was honored Tuesday for its commitment to "quality of life" in monitoring development in the Old Town neighborhood.
The group received the Chicago Community Trust Outstanding Plan Award as part of the Chicago Community Development Awards.
"We're definitely very, very excited about it," said the Rev. Randall Blakey of LaSalle Street Church, executive director of the program. "Most of all, we're excited for the achievement of the community. The whole community has come together in ways that it hadn't come together prior to the Near North Unity Program being formed."
That was five years ago, he added, although it didn't really "catch hold" until 2013.
According to Blakey, the group formed at the bequest of Ald. Walter Burnett Jr. (27th) and was "empowered with the help of the alderman to determine what the community is going to look like." That meant vetting development in the area from the Chicago River on the west to LaSalle Street on the east, between North and Chicago avenues — a vast footprint including the site of the old Cabrini-Green projects as well as Atrium Village.
"We have so much development," Blakey said. "In fact, we have the most development going on right now in the City of Chicago."
The group sometimes acts as a lightning rod for public comment, "in a very good way," Blakey said. "It's not a matter of resisting development," he said. Rather, it's a matter of giving residents "a say in what was developed in our community," he added.
"What we were awarded for was our quality-of-life plan and design guidelines," Blakey said.
According to Blakey, the group has set four clear priorities: youth and family, safety, employment and land use and development. It has set guidelines on density, pedestrian access, parking and the overall look of projects.
One priority, he said, was on "the size of units, because we're trying to attract families to the community." For that reason, it has emphasized the inclusion of two- and three-bedroom units in housing projects. "We didn't want just one-bedrooms and efficiencies," Blakey said.
Another, he added, was to monitor "the number of individuals from [the Chicago Housing Authority] who have been displaced who have a right to return," an ongoing concern largely dictated by a Cabrini-Green consent decree.
Speaking of the Cabrini-Green area, Terrace 459 was also honored with a third-place finish for the Landon Bone Baker Architects firm under consideration for the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Award for Architectural Excellence in Community Design. Terrace 459 previously won an architecture award for affordable housing last year.
The Chicago Community Development Awards are organized by Local Initiatives Support Corporations Chicago.
