A shared vision of the Chicago River's potential brings planning honors to Chicago, Lake County and Friends of the Chicago River.
Rivers, and the watersheds they drain, are not limited by local political boundaries. Neither should be the effort to protect and improve them as they flow across our heavily urbanized metropolitan region.
It was this trans-regional, all-inclusive approach that most impressed the judges of the Metropolitan Planning Council's (MPC) 2001 Daniel H. Burnham Award for excellence in planning. The judges selected two entries — one city, one suburban, both enhancing the Chicago River — to share this year's award.
The co-winners are: the City of Chicago Department of Planning and Development for its Chicago River Corridor Development Plan; and the Lake County Stormwater Management Commission, along with Friends of the Chicago River, for their North Branch Watershed Assessment and Plan for Lake County.
The award will be presented Tuesday, April 3, 2001, at MPC's Annual Luncheon Meeting (11:15–1:30 p.m.) at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel and Towers. [Click here for more information.]
"What these two river plans do is take us beyond real estate and into the realm of natural geography," said architect John F. "Jack" Hartray, chairman of the Burnham Award selection committee. "It's the kind of planning that unifies the region."
Fellow judge Carol Calabresa, a member of the Lake County board, said she was impressed not just by the planners' efforts to involve the general public, but by their effort to bring together government agencies and environmental groups that often don't see eye-to-eye.
"When you get 124 of these agencies and groups together," Calabresa said, referring especially to the Lake County plan, "that's pretty phenomenal."
The City created its Chicago River Corridor Development Plan as both a vision and set of standards for new development to increase public access and create recreational opportunities.
The corridor plan shows how the river can, and indeed, is, being transformed from an out-of-sight, out-of-mind drainage channel to a civic focal point not unlike Chicago's magnificent lakefront. The plan approaches the river in nine separate "reaches." It shows, for instance, how downtown can be energized by grand esplanades, walkways and open-air restaurants along the river's edge. But it also shows how neighborhoods can be made more neighborly with river-edge picnic areas, nature trails and canoe landings.
The North Branch Watershed Project, though led by Friends/LCSMC, ended up involving more than 100 stakeholders. These ranged from municipalities and drainage districts to golf courses and canoe clubs, from university researchers to the Army Corps of Engineers.
Over three years and with the help of a state grant, an open planning process was pursued that melded field workshops, public outreach, plenary conferences and commissioned research. The democratic methods produced not a watered-down result, but a hard-nosed study that identifies problems along the North Branch (water pollution, flooding, degradation of natural areas), potential solutions, and which agencies or landowners are responsible for action.
Taken together, the judges said, the two planning efforts demonstrate the power of good planning to rally a diverse region around a shared vision.
Now in its 14th year, the Burnham Award recognizes planning efforts — whether in the private, civic or government arena — that raise both professional standards and our spirits as Chicagoans. This year's award was underwritten by the firm of Nagle Hartray Danker Kagan McKay Architects Planners Ltd.
Besides Hartray and Calabresa, the 2001 selection committee included: Jerry Adelmann, Openlands Project; Ray Bodnar, Metro Southwest Alliance; Phil Bus, Kane County Department of Development; Pat Dowell, Near West Side Community Development Corp; Linda Goodman, Goodman Williams Group; Charles Leeks, Neighborhood Housing Services/North Lawndale; Herbert Schumann, Jr., Cook County Board; Ron Thomas, Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission; and Bill Wiet, Aurora Office of Community Development.
For additional information, contact Peter Scales, CDPD at 312/744-4334, or Susan Vancil, LCSMC at 847/918-5265.