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Posted Feb 6, 2018, 11:24 PM
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Urbane observer
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Join Date: Nov 2006
Posts: 4,386
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Richard Epstein criticizes the giveaway of parkland in Newsweek
Obama Library Plans Run Into Trouble On Chicago’s South Side
It is an open secret the Obama forces are doing what’s best for themselves by trying to locate the facility in a posh neighborhood without regard to the negative consequences on the rest of the community.
In making its demands for the new facility, the OPC notes correctly that Jackson Park is not held in “public trust” and thus is ripe for development. But beware of hidden technicalities.
The public trust doctrine dates back to the famous, if Delphic, 1892 Supreme Court decision in Illinois Central Railroad v. Illinois. It provides that public trust lands, like Lake Michigan and its adjoining beach, cannot be sold or given away by the state. This restrictive principle is in practice quite perverse, insofar as it blocks perfectly sensible transactions between the state and private parties that work to the mutual benefit of both sides.
The correct approach, therefore, should scrutinize the transaction to ensure that the state receives cash and in-kind benefits that exceed the value of the property it surrenders. (The private party, like the Obama Foundation, can take care of its own interest.)
The just compensation requirement operates in the same way as in ordinary takings cases, only in reverse, because the government is disposing of the land and not acquiring it.
First, it preserves fairness by making sure that both sides come out ahead. Second, it imposes a price constraint on the private party to incentivize it not to take deals that make no sense in the first place. The OPC is not exempt from these rules because of its lofty ambitions.
Since Jackson Park is not held in public trust, Chicago can make a deal with any private party. But that added freedom does not remove from it the obligation to receive a fair value for what it transfers—including valuable building rights on public lands. Some years ago, I described this public trust doctrine as the inverse of the takings clause: “nor shall public property be given to private use, without just compensation,” in order to make sure there is no sweetheart deal in either direction.
There is no way that this Jackson Park transaction passes that fair-value test. Chicago receives no direct compensation in cash or kind from the transaction. Instead, it suffers three kinds of losses.
The first is the financial obligation to retrofit the park to accommodate this oversized project. The second is the loss of amenities in Jackson Park and its surroundings. The third is the long-term inconvenience and delay to the many commuters and visitors who today use the park’s roads and other facilities.
The deal would fall apart if the Obama team were required to compensate the City for these losses. Yet the balance is far different with virtually all the other sites on the South Side, like Washington Park.
There, the new center could act as a magnet that would increase the value of nearby parcels of land, which would benefit greatly from the increased commercial and tourist traffic generated by the project. And the close access to Chicago’s expressway system would reduce the cost and inconvenience of reconfiguring city streets.
The above analysis offers a clear blueprint by which to evaluate the transfer of public lands to private parties. Unfortunately, the relatively clear tests for major land use decisions has been aggravated by the so-called “exaction problem.”
And Friends of the Parks' executive director in Crain's
Obama Presidential Center controversy about parks, not race
Just recently, a white man who is very involved with Jackson Park scolded me in response to an email to Friends of the Parks' supporters. We were celebrating the fact that the Chicago Park District filed a plan to replace the track and field that would be displaced by the Obama Presidential Center. He was mad that we claimed any part in that victory. He wanted all the credit.
Later that same day, an African-American woman who lives on the South Side gave it to me for celebrating any victory at all. She said that the only victory is keeping the OPC out of Jackson Park altogether.
So, here's the thing.
Opinions about the Obama Presidential Center do not break down neatly along racial lines.
Friends of the Parks has gladly accepted invitations to participate at a handful of tables over the last year or so, to provide perspective and consider strategy as local residents analyze the various Jackson Park "revitalization" issues. ...
And we are participating in, and coordinating with others around, the Section 106/National Environmental Protection Act review that is taking place right now for Jackson Park, as we do all the time on projects that impact parks all over Chicago.
Plus, we have attended a number of invite-only meetings with the Obama Foundation alongside a diverse set of community stakeholders, park advocates and historic preservationists.
This stuff is being analyzed six ways to Sunday.
And people don't agree with each other. People who are white don't all agree with each other, and people who are black don't all agree with each other.
Meanwhile, of course, right-wing anti-Obama ugliness in the social media and fake news sphere is definitely spiking as those elements celebrate any bumps that Obama faces along the way to actualizing the OPC. That mess is awful and has no place in this conversation.
The conversation should be about whether parks-lakefront or not, historic or not-should be seen as prime parcels for real estate development in a city that is ranked No. 13 on the list of amount of parkland per 1,000 residents in high-density cities, according to the Trust for Public Land's 2017 City Parks Facts. We are the third-largest city by population. We should be at least No. 3 on the list. We don't have enough parkland as it is.
And the conversation should be about who's going to pay for all the road closures. But that's a story for another day.
We've said it before, and we'll say it again. All of the benefits of recently proposed museums on parkland in Chicago are possible without building them in parks. Since the beginning, and as recently as this month, Friends of the Parks has repeatedly encouraged the Obama Foundation to utilize vacant land across the street from Washington Park. We, and many others who oppose real estate development in parks, would love to see community-benefiting economic development and Obama's legacy honored on Chicago's South Side, where he got his start. Just not in a park.
Let's not again stoop to the racialized tactics. When that's what is really happening, it's appropriate to call it out. But that's not what this is.
In this city in which false dichotomies are often promoted by leadership in an effort to gain support for a particular public policy outcome, and, as we're reeling from the impact of such leadership in Washington, D.C., wouldn't it be nice if our hometown former president would call for a different kind of discourse? We at Friends of the Parks choose to believe that's who Obama is.
At a recent invite-only meeting held by the Obama Foundation to discuss the parking garage, a supporter of the OPC identified himself in affiliation with the nonprofit group he represents and suggested that those who ask any questions at all about pretty much any element of the Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park must be white and must not care about black people.
That comment broke the Obama Foundation's own stated rules around civic engagement.
This needs to stop.
Maybe Obama can be the change.
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