Brewpubs like Goose Island in the Kinzie Industrial Corridor will be able to set up outdoor patio seating under an ordinance set for City Council approval. [Facebook/Goose Island]

Chicago’s proliferation of outdoor restaurant patios will be free to extend into the industrial districts of the city’s Near West and Northwest Side under a rule change set for final approval on Wednesday.

Aldermen are set to meet on Wednesday for the first regular City Council meeting since approving the 2022 budget. [Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago]

During the first regular City Council meeting since passing the 2022 budget, aldermen on Wednesday are set to approve nearly $3 million for five police-related settlements and loosen rules allowing dogs in some Chicago bars, among dozens of other measures.  

Ald. James M. Gardiner (45) reacts at a City Council meeting where alderpeople voted on the 2022 budget, on Oct. 27, 2021. [Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago]

The city’s ethics board is calling for harsher punishments for alderpeople who violate the council’s code of conduct after Ald. Jim Gardiner (45) allegedly retaliated against constituents who criticized him.

The zoning amendment for the lot near Argyle Street and Long Avenue kills the proposed project by developer American Heritage, which was first introduced in 2014. [provided]

A proposal to bring a 48-unit Northwest Side apartment complex that was already on life support is now officially dead after Ald. Jim Gardiner (45) downzoned a vacant Jefferson Park lot this week, undoing a 2016 zoning decision championed by his predecessor.

The City Council Committee on Finance approved nearly $3 million in police-related settlements on Monday, including a $2 million payout related to a woman killed in a high-speed chase in 2018. [UnSplash/Scott Rodgerson]

A City Council committee advanced a $2 million payout on Monday to settle a lawsuit tied to a 2018 high-speed police chase that ended in a woman’s death. But multiple aldermen resisted the deal in the latest sign of the City Council’s growing restlessness with city attorneys over misconduct lawsuits.

A proposed ordinance will allow bar owners to invite pets inside their businesses — but only if they do not serve food. [Lo Rez Brewing/Archie's Rockwell Tavern]

City rules will allow dog owners to bring their companions into some Chicago bars under an ordinance that advanced out of a City Council committee on Monday.

A rendering of the LeClaire Courts redevelopment plan proposed by the Chicago Housing Authority and two private development firms [Department of Planning and Development]

A years-in-the-making plan to build 725 new homes and a network of businesses on the former Southwest Side site of the LeClaire Courts public housing complex is set to take one step closer to reality on Tuesday.

The Chicago skyline part of the North Side seen at sunrise over Welles Park on Oct. 23, 2021. [Colin Boyle/Block Club]

This article was originally published by Block Club Chicago.

Facing criticism over a lack of transparency, a City Council committee will hold at least one more public hearing for residents to give input on a new ward map that will shape the city’s politics for the next decade.

From left: Chicago Police Department Deputy Chief Larry Snelling, ShotSpotter CEO Ralph Clark and Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35) during a City Council committee hearing on Friday.

The ShotSpotter gunshot detection technology has “exceeded” the requirements laid out in a multi-year contract with Chicago, city officials said Friday. But without a process to vet how often the technology is leading police astray, multiple aldermen said the city needs to raise its standard for the service costing taxpayers $9 million per year.

Greystone homes in North Lawndale. City leaders are proposing to put millions of public dollars behind a campaign to sell and redevelop hundreds of city-owned vacant lots in the neighborhood. [Pascal Sabino/Block Club]

Chicago will dedicate up to $5.3 million in tax-increment financing to help clean up a network of 100 North Lawndale vacant lots so they can be redeveloped into single-family homes and sold at reduced rates under a measure set to be advanced by aldermen on Monday.

Ald. James Gardiner (45) has a date with the Chicago Board of Ethics on Monday to determine whether he incurred enough violations of the city’s ethics code to rack up $7,000 in fines. The City Council’s license committee will take up a host of measures to tighten regulations on various businesses. And aldermen will meet for the last of three public hearings scheduled to discuss the city’s ongoing remap process.

A graphic showing how ShotSpotter's technology works. Representatives of the technology firm ShotSpotter are slated to testify in a meeting of the City Council Committee on Public Safety on Friday. [ShotSpotter]

Aldermen are gearing up for a long-promised hearing on Friday that will give them a chance to grill police leaders and other city officials over their use of a widely criticized gunshot detection technology. Representatives of the tech firm will also be on hand to defend their product. 

Ald. Gilbert Villegas (36) announced on Wednesday plans to run for Congress in Illinois’ new 3rd District. [Don Vincent/The Daily Line]

Ald. Gilbert Villegas (36) on Wednesday became the first candidate to officially throw his hat in the ring to run to represent Illinois’ newly drawn 3rd Congressional District.  

The $4 billion Bronzeville Lakefront mega-proposal took another step toward reality with a streetscape revamp ordinance. Speakers called for Chicago’s next ward map to boost Asian American representation. And aldermen on the budget committee approved more than $90 million in new grant funding, including $50 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Ald. Michelle Harris (8) speaks during Tuesday’s public hearing on ward remapping.

With three weeks left until the City Council's deadline to vote on a new ward map, city officials this week rolled out a tool that lets residents draw their own ward maps and submit them to the City Council Committee on Committees and Rules.