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The FINAL version of the plan is now available.  It is the culmination of almost 2 years of hard work on the part of the Planning Team, the Resident Ambassadors, the Steering Committee, and you, the community. Substantial work is already underway and the momentum is only going to continue. The Plan has been broken down into chapters to be downloaded individually. The full document is also available below.

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To view a chapter, click the links below:

Acknowledgments

1. Executive Summary

2. Community Context

3. Our Planning Process

4. Vision For Neighborhood Transformation

5. Neighborhood Plan

6. Housing Plan

7. People Plan

8. Implementation

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To see the Full document click the link below:

FULL PLAN – Chicago Heights Downtown/East Side Choice Neighborhoods Plan

The latest version of the plan is now available.  It is the culmination of more than a year of work on the part of the Planning Team, the Resident Ambassadors, the Steering Committee, and you, the community.

To see the document click the link below:

Chicago Heights Downtown/East Side Choice Neighborhood Plan

The Plan will continue to be refined in the coming months, with anticipated completion early next year. The Planning Team is excited to hear your comments and feedback in order to ensure that the Plan is truly representative of the needs and desires of the Downtown/East Side.

In Community Meeting 3 there were three different concepts proposed by the Planning Team to the public.

For a detailed explanation of the planning process and the concepts, view the Community Meeting Presentation HERE

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Concept A

Concept A is focused on rehabbing the existing public housing sites while adding amenities and enhancements to improve the area. To see Concept A click HERE

Concept B

Concept B is focused on improving the area around Lincoln-Gavin School with new mixed-income apartments to replace the existing public housing units, adding amenities and enhancements to this area. To see Concept B click HERE

Concept C

Concept C is focused on improving the area around the downtown with new mixed-income apartments to replace the existing public housing units, adding amenities and enhancements. To see Concept C click HERE

On February 14th, 2019 the Chicago Heights Downtown/East Side Choice Neighborhood Planning team hosted a Community Visioning Workshop  at Lincoln-Gavin Elementary. Residents of the Chicago Heights Downtown/East Side Choice Neighborhood provided input on the future of their neighborhood.
To begin the meeting, residents were given question cards that asked them what their ideal neighborhood would include in three words and allowed them to provide additional comments. Residents were also given stickers to identify preferred residential and commercial building types. After a short presentation from Bill James of Camiros, Tim Kollar of The Housing Authority of Cook County facilitated a Family Feud style game explaining the results of the recent Resident Needs Assessment Survey. Residents then broke into groups to “plan” their community by completing a sticker activity in which they identified their preferred locations for a variety of potential housing types and retail development on a map of the Downtown/East Side Choice Neighborhood.

For a full explanation of the results click HERE

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On September 12th, 2018 the first meeting of the Working Groups took place at Golden Towers Senior Living Community in Chicago Heights.

An integral part of the Choice Planning Process is the working group. The Working Groups function as subcommittees of the Steering Committee.

The five Working Groups are where the solutions to problems are found and initiatives to transform the neighborhood are generated and considered.

Following a presentation by Bill James of Camiros, each working group met and came up with 3-4 key elements that will be important in creating the positive experience needed to transform the Downtown/East Side area into a neighborhood of choice.

There is an individual web page  for each of the 5 groups, they can be found under the working group drop-down menu to the left, or by clicking the links below:

• Education and workforce
• Health, Youth, and Family
• Housing and Neighborhood Improvements
• Transportation and Economic Development
• Safety

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The full presentation can be found here: HERE

All the working group responses can be found HERE

 

New photos and documents have been added to the website!

We have uploaded:

• Photos of the June 23rd Celebration Event
• Posters and a report of the June 23rd event
• The presentation and agenda for the July 31st Steering Committee Meeting
• The updated Data Book with maps and information on the Downtown and East Side

Take a look and let us know what you think!

 

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