These are excerpts from an article in the near west gazette a few months back about earlier PDNA efforts to fight this development. For those that don't remember, they forgot to go to the community review meetings(when such efforts might have made a difference), then claimed that they weren't informed of the meeting by the developer. Of course, it was posted where such meeting dates are always posted, and most on this board were well aware of it and many attended it. Anyways, in the article, DPD makes excruciatingly clear that the permit process for the towers was legal and had full disclosure to the community. Further, the DPD position, from an urban planning viewpoint, is that the "historic district" argument, is bullshit. The quotes in that article alone make any legal challenge to this project unsustainable. But legality aside, it doesn't seem at all likely that the city would side with the PDNA in this case anyway.
http://www.nearwestgazette.com/Archi...story0507f.htm
The Prairie District Neighborhood Alliance (PDNA) has filed a procedural challenge with the City’s Department of Planning and Development asking for clarification on aspects of the approved X/O luxury highrise project at 1700 S. Prairie Ave, which would erect one tower of 45 stories and another 33 stories high. The City, however, found no reason for an investigation and nothing inappropriate in the project’s approval process.
The City’s Department of Planning and Development (DPD) said that, although the PDNA objects to having two tall towers near the historic Prairie District, the property actually sits just north of the district and fits into the City’s plan for the South Loop for several reasons. For example, according to Constance Buscemi, DPD spokesperson, the X/O development will be down the block from other new—and taller—buildings, the corner will provide open space that is accessible and available to the community, the project will provide parking as required, and the development will be set back behind townhouses in accordance with the South Loop plan.
“Development means that you mix old with new—a mix of heights and density,” Buscemi said. “If you never developed anything, it would stay the same. You do not preserve a historic district by creating new buildings that mimic it but [by constructing ones] that are different so you don’t confuse historic buildings with recently erected buildings.”
Buscemi confirmed the developers completed the approval process in the correct manner by holding community meetings and going through the City Planning Commission and Zoning Committee, where the public can comment.
“It was an open, public process judged on its merits, and it was approved,” Buscemi said. “There was nothing inappropriate and no reason for investigation.”
“The public and community review of this project took place over a period of over six months, which allowed comment and community input from many, many different sources," Giles wrote in a letter that was read aloud at the last GSLA meeting. "The result was a project that was approved without significant objection.”
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if they demanded anything shorter, since most of them live in that development. 
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