Officials soon launched a series of community meetings about the redesign, at which residents shared suggestions and criticisms for incorporation into updated designs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But these meetings have largely been an arena for negotiating conflict between the project\u2019s designers, who say that an overhaul of the site needs to happen to mitigate rapid erosion and flooding, and preservationists who say they want to see the park left basically as it is. At another meeting for the project late last month, these conflicts continued.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I have essentially the exact same question and comment that I did at the very beginning of this process,\u201d said Amanda Egberts, a member of the preservation group Advocates for Morgan Shoal, at a public meeting late last month. \u201cThere is a fundamental disconnect between this and public engagement.\u201d<\/p>\n
Held in a muggy Kennecott Park Field House, this meeting was the sixth forum on the project since last February. The Chicago Public Building Commission had just released its latest draft design for Morgan Shoal<\/a> \u2014 and preservation advocates were not happy.<\/p>\n As Egberts spoke, often gesturing to a crowd of 50 or so attendees behind her, a panel of representatives from city and federal agencies sat at tables at the head of the field house gymnasium and listened quietly.\u00a0<\/p>\n Throughout the evening, several attendees took to the microphone to tell officials that they were concerned federal funding could fall through, that the public vetting process wasn\u2019t transparent enough and that they weren\u2019t consulted early and seriously enough in the redesign process to give real input.<\/p>\n “We’re not meeting with you all to decide what happens,” said Tchiya Amet El Maatif, another\u00a0 shoreline preservation advocate and a Kenwood resident. “You’re telling us what you’re going to do. So, it’s not a community meeting.”<\/p>\n Officials, however, have said that<\/a> an overhaul of the site needs to happen to address ongoing erosion and coastal storm damage, and it needs to happen soon. Principally, city officials and coastal engineers have said erosion poses a threat to DuSable Lake Shore Drive in Chicago, the expressway which hugs much of the city\u2019s shoreline.<\/p>\n Erosion, evaluation and reconstruction of Morgan Shoal<\/strong><\/p>\n The bulk of Chicago\u2019s shoreline was constructed between 1910 and 1934 \u2014 but by the 1950s, city officials<\/a> had grown concerned about its degradation.<\/p>\n In 1974, Congress directed<\/a> the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to investigate erosion along Illinois\u2019 entire Lake Michigan shoreline.\u00a0<\/p>\n Twenty years later, the USACE concluded its investigation. In 1994, it published a Feasibility Report for the Chicago Shoreline Storm Damage Reduction Project, which led to authorization of the Chicago Shoreline Protection Project as part of the Water Resources Development Act of 1996.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Chicago Shoreline Protection Project proposed the construction of a concrete and steel revetment spanning eight miles of the city\u2019s shoreline. Those eight miles of shoreline were later divided into 23 sections for subsequent planning and construction purposes.<\/p>\n Two major federal reviews of the redesign project needed to be completed before final designs could be issued and construction could commence: the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 review, also known as the NEPA review, and the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 review, commonly referred to as the Section 106 review.<\/p>\n