Chicago developers worried last year that construction projects would face bureaucratic snarls after city planners added a layer to the approval process. Builders already had to run a gantlet of officials on several commissions and committees, as well as City Council. Some now had to face the Committee on Design, a panel of experts who would critique designs and press developers to make improvements.
“The idea of having another step like that was concerning for us,” said Jeff Head, vice president of development for The Habitat Co., a Chicago-based developer that in March presented, along with its partner P3 Markets, plans to the committee for a 10-story residential and commercial building at 43rd Street and the Green Line on the South Side.
But Head’s fears did not come true, he added. The new committee, an all-volunteer group of architects, urban planners, designers and developers, praised Habitat’s development, calling it a refreshing addition to a neighborhood with little new investment.
Members did advise some changes, such as crafting a new and more prominent residential entrance, all relatively easy adjustments, and the partners’ updated plan secured approval in September from the Chicago Plan Commission.
“The Committee on Design was pitched to developers as a way to accelerate the approval process, and I felt that in our case that’s what happened,” according to Head. “It didn’t disrupt the timeline.”
Although none of the several dozen projects analyzed by the committee since its first public monthly meeting in August 2021 have started construction, most have marched steadily toward full City Council approval and several developers are ready to begin construction over the next few months.
That shows the 24-member committee is doing its job, according to city planners. It’s helping shape what Chicagoans will experience when they walk through new developments, and the committee’s influence is likely to grow as it focuses attention on the most important projects. That includes new towers in Fulton Market and affordable housing developments in neighborhoods historically ignored by investors.
“By and large, the projects that go before the Committee on Design are getting their signoffs earlier,” said Gerardo Garcia, deputy commissioner of Chicago’s planning department. “And we are elevating design excellence for all, and for every community,”
The brainchild of Department of Planning and Development Commissioner Maurice Cox, each month the committee holds an online meeting, focusing on several proposals picked by planning staff, split roughly between major private developments, often for Fulton Market, and affordable developments, often part of Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s INVEST South/West initiative.
Committee members say the goal isn’t to block development, and they most often recommend refinements, rather than wholesale revisions.
“We’re really not there to be an aesthetic police force, to decide whether a facade is red or blue, or to put obstacles in front of people or their projects,” said Brian Lee, consulting partner at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. “All of us on the committee have experience with the approval process, are sensitive to it, and are concerned about issues such as costs and scheduling.”
The committee’s mostly modest recommendations mean it probably won’t revolutionize Chicago architecture, according to member Reed Kroloff, dean of Illinois Institute of Technology’s College of Architecture. But it does push applicants to think more about how their buildings will impact surrounding neighborhoods, and whether they can include more public goods such as parks.
“What we typically ask a developer is, ‘what are you doing to maximize the public benefit of that property?’ ” Kroloff said. “Most of the conversations have been very convivial, very friendly, and a lot of the architects have jumped in and engaged as they realize that this isn’t something…
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