Aldermen will continue to have the power to unilaterally approve signs on city sidewalks after Mayor Lori Lightfoot agreed to send her latest effort to strip them of the final say on ward-level issues back to the drawing board.

County health officials would lease space inside city-run mental health clinics so they can offer psychiatric sessions via video conference under a measure advanced by aldermen on Tuesday.

 

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s plan to revamp the Neighborhood Opportunity Fund designed to reverse decades of disinvestment in the South and West sides cleared a key city panel Tuesday.

Lightfoot’s proposal (O2020-103) would allow the city to reimburse 50 percent of a project’s construction expenses. The current rules cap that amount at 30 percent for grants of $250,000 or less, even though a project can be reimbursed for 50 percent of the cost of rehabilitating an existing building under the current rules.

Related: After Emanuel’s ‘smoke and mirrors,’ Lightfoot claims Neighborhood Opportunity Fund as her own

The proposal would also give businesses that receive grants access to a pool of technical advisers to help them to bring together the capital and manage contractors.

The City Council’s Committee on Economic, Capital and Technology Development unanimously approved the changes, which head to final vote at the full City Council meeting set for Feb. 19.

Lightfoot has already moved to allow grants from the Neighborhood Opportunity Fund to be used to cover 100 percent of a project’s total cost — if both the owner and their employees are residents of the South or West sides. Otherwise, the grant is capped at 65 percent of total costs.

Ald. Walter Burnett (27) praised Planning and Development Comm. Maurice Cox and Lightfoot for the changes.

“I commend you for taking something that is good and making it better,” Burnett said. “It is like the Robin Hood thing without stealing.”

Mayor Rahm Emanuel created the Neighborhood Opportunity Fund in 2016 in an attempt to capitalize on the boom Downtown and in the West Loop by giving developers the green light to build taller and denser projects — for a price.

In addition, applicants can ask for as much as $25,000 before the project breaks ground to pay for appraisals, environmental surveys and architectural services. Under Emanuel, funding was limited to projects that were under construction.

Lightfoot has also changed the rules to allow more projects to qualify for grants up to $250,000 in order to reduce the need for bridge loans during construction. The new rules also permit the funds to be held in escrow for large projects, in an effort to help entrepreneurs qualify for other loans.

When Lightfoot took office, the Neighborhood Opportunity Fund had $57 million, but Emanuel awarded just $890,000 in grants, as the program was mired in red tape and confusing regulations.

In all, $202 million has been committed to the fund, with $53.8 million coming just from the approved but not yet started redevelopment of the River District/Tribune properties.

Lightfoot has also earmarked $30 million from the Neighborhood Opportunity Fund to be used by the Invest South/West initiative, which is designed to boost 10 neighborhoods that each have “at least one well-developed community plan with a commercial component” and “at least one active commercial area at a specific node or intersection,” according to the Department of Planning and Development.

Invest South/West will focus on Austin, Humboldt Park, North Lawndale, New City, Greater Englewood, Auburn Gresham, South Shore, South Chicago, Roseland/Pullman and the Quad Communities of Bronzeville, Oakland and Kenwood, according to the mayor’s office.

South and West side businesses and entrepreneurs can apply online for $10 million in grants through Feb. 29, as part of the first application period since Lightfoot took office. Officials can award grants of up to $250,000, while bigger projects have to win approval from the City Council.

Those who apply should get a decision by the end of March, with another application period set to open in July, according to the mayor’s office.

Woodlawn resident Patricia Hightower addresses the crowd during the sit-in outside the mayor's office. [Heather Cherone/The Daily Line] 

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Critics of a city-crafted plan designed to prevent longtime residents from being pushed out of gentrifying parts of Woodlawn near the planned Obama Presidential Center blocked the main entrance to Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s office Tuesday.

The protest was the latest effort by the Obama CBA Coalition, which comprises seven groups, to spur Lightfoot to take immediate action to protect low-income residents who fear the Obama Center will ratchet up housing prices and leave them homeless.

Aldermen declared a climate emergency in Chicago on Monday, pledging to act to combat “catastrophic lakefront erosion, citywide flooding and severe unseasonable weather.”

Chicago housing officials spent less than $800,000 to subsidize apartments to make them affordable to low- and moderate-income Chicagoans between July and September 2019, a sharp drop-off as compared with previous months that could keep the city from meeting its self-imposed goal.

There will be one official candidate on the ballot in the race for 1st Ward Democratic committeeperson, but it is not clear whether any votes cast for him will count.

Aldermen would no longer have the power to unilaterally approve signs on city sidewalks under a measure introduced by Mayor Lori Lightfoot as part of her effort to strip them of the final say on ward-level issues.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot campaigned on a promise to reverse decades of disinvestment on Chicago’s South and West sides — and when she took office, she found a nearly $57 million pot of money earmarked for just that purpose.

Stung by accusations that Chicago’s neighborhoods languished on his watch, Mayor Rahm Emanuel created the Neighborhood Opportunity Fund in 2016 in an attempt to capitalize on the boom Downtown and in the West Loop by giving developers the green light to build taller and denser projects — for a price.

 

The first day to cast a ballot in the Democratic presidential primary and a slew of Cook County races will be Feb. 19 — at a new location and on new equipment, elections officials said Friday.

Aldermen will consider declaring a climate emergency in Chicago on Monday, citing “catastrophic lakefront erosion, citywide flooding and severe unseasonable weather.”

Jonathan “Yoni” Pizer was appointed to the Illinois House of Representatives amid a cloud of controversy on Sunday, as several other candidates running to succeed former Rep. Sara Feigenholtz (D-Chicago) cried foul over what they called a scheme to tip the upcoming primary election in Pizer’s favor.

Aldermen advanced a measure Thursday that could send fake ride-hailing drivers to jail for six months and fine them $20,000.

Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi and his allies in the Illinois House of Representatives are poised to introduce a revised version of a bill he says is designed to improve how the county’s millions of commercial properties are assessed.

Aldermen are set to consider a measure Thursday that would crack down on imposters posing as ride-hailing drivers.