One week after Chicago’s beaches opened, the Humboldt Park beach has no water and residents are demanding it open this summer.
Residents are planning a “beach blanket sit in” at 1 p.m. on Sunday to show the Chicago Park District they want their summer retreat back and a sustainable plan developed to keep the beach open in the future.
“For 40 years, Humboldt Park Beach has served as one of our neighborhood’s best summer resources. The beach brings diverse families, children and teens together from Humboldt Park, Logan Square and West Town as an oasis in hot urban summers,” the sit-in flyer said.
Earlier this month, the park district met with about 100 residents at a town hall meeting in Humboldt Park to discuss the future of the manmade beach.
“It is not scheduled to open now,” Rob Rejman, the Chicago Park District’s director of planning and development, said at the time. He said it costs about $1 million a year to constantly fill the beach with water and keep it open in the summer.
Possible alternatives he listed were water play areas with spray elements, landscape restoration, water conservation projects or storm water management projects.
Several residents and park advisory council members were frustrated at the late notice given by the park district and have appealed to officials to keep the beach. An online petition has nearly 1,800 signatures urging the park district to save the Humboldt Park beach.
Taking their families to the lakefront beaches by public transportation can be expensive, time consuming and simply a hassle when there’s a beach nearby, residents said.
A dry beach in Humboldt could increase the number of illegally opened fire hydrants as a way to cool off, residents said.
The Humboldt Park pool nearby doesn’t have a shallow end for small children and a single water spray feature is within a mile of the beach, according to the sit in flyer.
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Before making the move from Humboldt Park to Douglas Park, Riot Fest committed $30,000 toward keeping the beach open.
The Humboldt Park Advisory Council questioned whether the cost savings from the beach will be reinvested into Humboldt Park.
The park advisory council, which will meet on Thursday, is forming an ad-hoc committee of residents to discuss the beach with the park district’s representative at future meetings, looking for ways to sustain the beach and continuing to lobby the park district to reconsider its decision to close the beach.
The park district said it is committed to working with the community to find other alternatives, spokeswoman Jessica Maxey-Faulkner said in an email.
“Currently, we are seeking community input on an alternative ways to spend the nearly $1 million required to keep the beach open each year to support more sustainable forms of water recreation,” she said.