Oscar Gomez/Borderless MagazineSoutheast Side residents gathered at an open house to offer input as the city looks to revitalize the industrial corridors along the Calumet River.
Kenneth Litzkey, 53, wants to see training for existing small businesses and more bus lines in his community. He wrote the ideas on a post-it note and fastened it to one of the dozens of poster boards at an open house hosted by the city on the Far South Side.
The city’s Department of Planning and Development (DPD) hosted the event Thursday evening, during which local residents could speak to city officials and offer ideas for improvements and developments for the Calumet area, which spans 10,300 acres and includes about six miles of the Calumet River which runs into Lake Michigan.
On their wishlists, residents expressed interest in expanding outdoor recreational opportunities, adding more health centers, allowing access to the river and halting additional heavy industrial activity in their community.
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Litzkey is cautiously optimistic about the city delivering on potential plans to improve the area he has lived in since he was 3 years old. “With first-time stuff, there are many variables,” he said. “It’s a matter of how this gets done.”
DPD officials said the open house was the beginning of a year-long community engagement process to collect suggestions that will help inform the city’s land use and design guidelines for the next 10 to 20 years. According to officials, the city last drafted a plan of this kind for the area over 20 years ago.
DPD plans to host two more events of this kind in 2025 and provide other opportunities for the public to share ideas through focus groups, surveys and smaller community events. DPD looks to submit a draft plan to the city’s Plan Commission in 2026.
150 Years Of Industrial Activity
Calumet Area is a hub for commercial transportation and has been home to about 150 years of industrial activity. This activity brought waves of immigrants to Chicago’s Southeast Side but also polluted it and disrupted its rich ecosystem.
For decades, it has been the center of environmental justice movements, which have led to a reimagining of the area with the surrounding community’s well-being in mind. However, the lead-up to this moment has been tumultuous.
Southsiders and environmental justice advocacy groups have long asked for the area to be cleaned up and made more accessible. They’ve also asked for the city to revise its zoning and land use laws and consider how they affect the well-being of its low-income residents and residents of color. The Calumet area comprises several neighborhoods, home to majority Black residents and 20% Hispanic or Latino with a median income that is less than half of the city median, according to stats shared by the city Thursday evening.
Revisiting the Calumet area’s land use is part of a larger effort by the city to reform its zoning and land use policies, which the federal government found racially discriminatory in an investigation in 2022.
Environmental justice advocates sparked the federal investigation when they called out the city’s approval to relocate General Iron, a scrap metal recycling facility, from the majority-white neighborhood of Lincoln Park to the Southeast Side. They argued that the move was part of a pattern of city actions leading to polluting industries concentrated in communities of color on the South and West Sides.
It resulted in a settlement between the city and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that required the city to address the issue or risk losing hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds.
Now, the city is considering community input regarding the environment, economic well-being, health and infrastructure in the Calumet area. DPD said it is collecting community suggestions to inform the drafting of a new land use plan and design guidelines for the area by next year, which could include proposals to rezone parts of the areas currently designated as industrial.
“This is such an exciting and huge thing because it creates the opportunity for some real change […] to open up our community to receive other land uses, more residential, more commercial, more potential green space,” said Yessenia Balcazar, a lifelong resident of the Southeast Side.
As the senior resilient community planning manager for the Southeast Environmental Task Force (SETF), Balcazar, along with Muse, an urban planning and public engagement firm, is collaborating with the city to engage the community in drafting the new land use plan. SETF led the campaign against the relocation of General Iron.
The area’s industrial activity significantly altered the region over the years. The Calumet River is polluted and largely inaccessible to residents, and some of its surrounding land is vacant and contaminated due to a decline in the steel industry since the 1980s. The area is home to three Superfund sites, some of the country’s most polluted pieces of land slated to undergo a federal government remediation process.
The areas looking to be revitalized include three industrial corridors, Burnside, Pullman, and Calumet, designated for industrial and manufacturing activity.
The area also includes the Calumet Open Space Reserve, born out of the area’s last land use plan drafted over 20 years ago. It’s made up of 4,000 acres of wetlands and natural spaces that are visited by over 200 species of birds every year.
Luke Mich, project manager at DPD, said the area has improved since the drafting of its previous plan, namely the creation of the Calumet Nature Reserve and more industrial investment. However, it continues to have some vacant and underutilized areas that can be improved, Mich noted.
“The city wants to make sure these industrial corridors are working long term,” said Mich. “We want to make sure that we’re protecting and enhancing those [natural resources], and in the neighborhoods that surround this area, we want to make sure that folks not only have access to jobs, but access to clean air and clean water.”
Chicago natives John Moreno, 45, and Omar Piña, 45, hope to see just that. New to the Far South Side, they both attended the event to learn more about the area’s future. Moreno moved from the North Side and bought a house in the area about a year and a half ago.
“I think the community needs more access to the river,” said Moreno, “I came for the water.”
Both Moreno and Piña work rehabbing homes and are optimistic about future investments in improving the area.
“I see a lot of potential here,” said Piña.
He hopes to see less heavy industry come into the area and the preservation of abandoned industrial structures.
Residents can sign up to receive updates on upcoming engagement events for the city’s revitalization efforts on the Far South Side.
Aydali Campa is a Report for America corps member and covers environmental justice and immigrant communities for Borderless Magazine. Send her an email at aydali@borderlessmag.org
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