The Tribune Editorial Board’s singular focus on affordable housing in the Fern Hill lakefront development dispute reveals a troubling disregard for another cherished Chicago value: our public Lake Michigan shore (“A whiff of antisemitism permeates Edgewater high-rise debate,” Sept. 2).
If allowed to proceed, Fern Hill’s massive 600-plus-unit high-rise complex would be a major private development built directly on Chicago’s Lake Michigan shore since the Lakefront Protection Ordinance was enacted in 1973. Yet, remarkably, the editorial board never mentions this landmark 53-year-old legal framework designed to protect Chicago’s lakefront for the public. Instead, it dismisses Edgewater residents seeking to have that law applied to their stretch of lakefront as NIMBYs (“not in my backyard”).
Chicagoans have fought for generations to preserve and expand our extraordinary lakefront park system. The Lakefront Protection Ordinance embodies that history and Daniel Burnham’s enduring principle that “the lakefront by right belongs to the people.”
Former Tribune Editorial Page Editor and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Lois Wille chronicled that struggle in her classic history, “Forever Open, Clear and Free: The Struggle for Chicago’s Lakefront.” She understood that Chicago’s magnificent public lakefront did not happen by accident. It exists because generations of Chicagoans fought to protect it from private development.
The editorial board’s “build, baby, build” philosophy echoes the lack of planning and respect for the public interest in the lake that transformed Sheridan Road into high-rise row in the 1960s, leaving residents with the serious congestion and lack of public lakefront that persists today. We should learn from that history, not repeat it.
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Housing, lakefront protection and quality of life are not mutually exclusive. Edgewater has other locations crying out for mixed-use development where an even greater number of housing units could be built. Fern Hill’s 600-plus units do not need to occupy an irreplaceable stretch of Lake Michigan shoreline on an already intensely congested Sheridan Road.
Chicago may need more housing. But sensible development does not require sacrificing every other civic value to achieve it. We can build more housing while preserving the lakefront for the public as city policy and generations before us intended.
— Patricia Sharkey, president, Edgewater Residents for Responsible Development
Chicagoans need this housing
The proposed redevelopment of Emanuel Congregation in Edgewater should be a no-brainer. Six-hundred new homes will be built while allowing a neighborhood institution to remain on the land it owns, bringing new affordable housing to an area that desperately needs it.
Instead, “not in my backyard” (NIMBY) opponents are deploying desperate tactics to freeze the 48th Ward in the past.
That would be easier to understand if Chicago had an abundance of housing. We don’t.
My partner has been touring houses, only to learn that 10 other people are bidding on the same property. To be competitive, you need to be prepared to offer at least $100,000 over asking. Friends looking for apartments have encountered lines around the block. Families I know want to stay in Chicago, but are increasingly moving to the suburbs because there isn’t enough family-sized housing in the city.
And while Illinois families struggle to find places to live, Springfield has done far too little to meet the moment. Legislators went home in June, and the housing crisis remains. The needle has barely moved.
Thankfully, Chicago is stepping up.
Ald. Leni Manaa-Hoppenworth is meeting the moment in the 48th Ward by working with the community to improve the developer’s proposal. That’s what leadership looks like: listening, negotiating, improving projects and then building.
What makes the opposition to Emanuel absurd is this land is not for sale — and never has been. Emanuel owns it and has every right to decide how its property can serve the congregation and the broader community for generations to come. And rather than walling itself off, Emanuel is offering public access to the lakefront and creating new ways to enjoy the property. That’s what good neighbors do.
Edgewater has had high-rises along Sheridan Road for generations. “The Bob Newhart Show” even centered its fictional home in the building next door.
I actually wish the proposed development were taller. I want more families, more taxpayers and more neighbors in Chicago.
We can debate design. We can demand public bathrooms and easier beach access. But trying to stop new housing altogether isn’t preserving the neighborhood. It’s preventing Chicago from growing.
I want to see cranes in the sky. Those cranes represent something: more density, more opportunity and a future for the people who want to call Chicago home.
Chicago invented the skyscraper. We should say “yes in my backyard” to the next one.
— Nick Uniejewski, Chicago
Setting dangerous precedent
As a Jew who abhors antisemitism, I was surprised and angered that a Sept. 2 editorial accuses our group of antisemitism because we oppose the Fern Hill/Emanuel Congregation’s proposed high-rise development on the lakefront in Edgewater.
I and other Jewish and non-Jewish 48th Ward residents object to the project’s flagrant violation of the city’s Lakefront Protection Ordinance and the lack of consideration and study of environmental and traffic issues.
We all want Emanuel Congregation to find a continued home in Edgewater. But the Fern Hill project is not a good solution for the community or the city as a whole because it sets a dangerous precedent for development that limits public access to the lakefront.
Our group of community activists never has and never will tolerate antisemitism. We had nothing to do with the objectionable News Star coverage the editorial cites.
Ald. Leni Manaa-Hoppenworth made a false and defamatory allegation that we are trying “to erase the synagogue, its history, and its people from our community.” That undermines the important fight against genuine antisemitism.
— Harris Meyer, Chicago
Quoting Burnham when it suits
I find it incredibly interesting and, at the very least, hypocritical that the Tribune Editorial Board professed to care in an April 25, 2024, editorial about protecting our lakefront while quoting Daniel Burnham, which we completely agree with. But apparently that does not apply to the Fern Hill development in Edgewater on the lakefront.
I look forward to a response from the editorial board.
— Marjorie Fritz-Birch, Chicago
Editorial board gets it right
The Tribune Editorial Board gets it right about the development on North Sheridan Road. If you want to control a “view,” you must own it. Churches and other places of worship are allowed to reject landmarking specifically to allow redevelopment of their often long-held land. No matter what hymn you sing, the arguments are the same.
Neighborhoods have a right to protect their character and quality of life while property owners can rebuild within proper zoning. Everyone benefits from vibrant and thoughtful new buildings that respect the surrounding community.
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— Diane Levin, Chicago
Board should fight for CPS
Enough with the editorials trashing the Chicago Teachers Union for trying to pry money from Gov. JB Pritzker and the state legislature. Why isn’t the board writing editorials trashing our state government for not adequately funding Chicago’s public schools?
Illinois, by its own funding formula, has underfunded Chicago Public Schools by more than $1 billion. The editorial board is part of a Chicago newspaper and should be fighting for Chicago’s public schools, not bashing the teachers.
— Michael Connolly, Chicago
It’s wrong for cardinal to sue
I believe that it is the wrong decision for Cardinal Blase Cupich and Catholic nuns to sue Illinois to block its medical aid-in-dying law. I believe that people who are suffering a great deal should have the right to terminate their lives, if at that time they are mentally stable. It is so cruel to let them suffer like that if there is no cure for them.
This is actually punishment for these people!
— Charlotte Braun, Glenview
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