This press release below, from our next door neighborhood Pilsen, demonstrates the intentions of the UIC South Campus Expansion (getting poor Mexican immigrants to subsidize Mesirow Stein's luxury real estate developments) and the legal vulnerability to both the Pilsen TIF and the Roosevelt-Union TIF, where Maxwell Street sits. - SB
For immediate release, August 30, 1999
Contact: Leticia Cortez <cortez_ruiz_l@hotmail.com> 312-738-2717; Tracy Kurowski: 312-829-0776
Pilsen Plaintiffs, in a continuing battle over the Pilsen TIF, are coming back to court on Tuesday, August 31, 1999 at 9:30 A.M. Daley Center RM. 2308. The Plaintiffs assert that the Pilsen TIF ordinances should be invalidated because the City of Chicago has had three chances to hold a fair public hearing and it has violated the due process each time.
In a Motion filed last week, the Plaintiffs provided with court with seven excerpts from the transcripts of the Pilsen TIF hearings. Each documents the City of Chicago Department of Planning and Development claim to the Community Development Commission and to the public, that no money could flow between the Pilsen TIF District and the Roosevelt-Union (UIC) District (the location of the University of Illinois South Campus Expansion) because the areas were neither adjacent or contiguous. The Court is thoroughly familiar with the issue because city attorneys told the court that the areas were neither contiguous nor adjacent and that by law no money from the Pilsen TIF could go to Roosevelt Union (UIC) TIF District. The City even gave the court a map purporting to show lack of adjacency.
New evidence which the Plaintiffs discovered, corroborated, and filed in a Motion to Reconsider, last week demonstrates that when the legal descriptions of the two districts are read together with the City of Chicago Maps, it becomes clear that the two TIF Districts actually share a common boundary at the North Side of W. 16th Street. Therefore, under the Illinois TIF Statute money can flow between the two redevelopment areas.
The flow of money from the Pilsen TIF District to the Roosevelt-Union (UIC) TIF District is a hot issue for Pilsen residents who do not want to be forced to fund the University of Illinois for the twenty-three year life of the TIF while the University builds facilities, residences, dormitories and develops an area catering to a collegiate lifestyle which will inevitably transform Pilsen and displace its current residents. (Many current Pilsen residents still remember destruction of their homes by (UIC) in the late 1960's.)
Last November 24th, Judge Foreman enjoined the City of Chicago from implementing the Pilsen TIF because he found that the Community Development Commission hearing of April 28, 1998 on the TIF was so unfair that it violated due process. Under orders from the Court, the City started new hearings December 14, 1998, but the hearings were canceled when the court ruled that they City had failed to comply with notice requirements. Following the March 1999 hearings the City of Chicago got a dismissal by claiming that it had complied with the court order. The Plaintiffs who opposed the dismissal, now have new evidence of the City's continued pattern of due process violations.
A fair public hearing must be held prior to the passage of a valid TIF ordinance. The City passed the Pilsen TIF ordinances a year ago, but has still not held a fair public hearing. Plaintiffs are represented pro bono by attorneys Marlene Kamish & Jason Gylling.
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