Diverse Group Explores Calumet River Together

Friends' senior planner and GIS manager, Amy Heldman, joined a diverse group of environmentalists, community members, and government representatives last week on the Calumet River to tour the this unique stretch of the river system and discuss ideas for the future. The Southeast Environmental Task Force organized and led the boat tour.

The tour comes at an opportune time, as the City of Chicago Department of Planning and Development will soon kick off a process to update the Calumet Area Land Use Plan and Calumet Design Guidelines. Friends' planning team is coordinating with the Southeast Environmental Task Force and other environmental organizations and community partners in the Calumet region to provide input into the City of Chicago's policy update, because we recognize the potential for these regulatory modernizations to catalyze improvements that support the health of the river system.

Friends secured Chicago’s first river protection ordinance in 1983 and was instrumental in the creation of the original 1999 River Corridor Development Plan, which codified required setbacks and landscape treatments along the Chicago’s rivers. The Chicago River Design Guidelines were updated in 2019, but the Calumet River guidelines are from 2005 and in need of a modernized approach, that reflects the changing character of this corridor and surrounding communities’ needs and desires.

The Calumet River tour was a great on-the-river experience to start to think about what improvements can be made to this unique and changing stretch of the river system.