To the editor:
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Though it makes for a more colorful story, this should not have been about two developers, in a love triangle with the alderman, getting macho over a couple of lots in Bucktown. That belongs in News of the Weird. What should concern us is something never even mentioned in the article: this very year, for the first time in 45 years, Chicago’s famous zoning law is being rewritten from scratch, top to bottom. This is the big news; this and its surrounding controversy are what is worth newsprint. Berman v. GBD Development should be a timely footnote to that.
On a broader and more urgent level, there seems to be a remarkable parallel in notification problems regarding the city’s very plans to rewrite the code. Show of hands: How many of you care about how your neighborhood develops? How many of you were notified about the rewrite plans? In its official organ, the Zoning Reform Commission boasted that 200 people attended one of their workshops last June. But in a city of hundreds of thousands of concerned parties, this is a miserable showing. The result threatens to be a zoning ordinance with even fewer checks and balances.
Flailing his arms in West Town
