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FEDERAL GRANTS

An advance of $50,000 to finance preliminary planning for a project to supply four suburban communities in the Chicago area with a water supply from Lake Michigan was approved by Commissioner John C. Hazeltine of the Community Facilities Administration. The applicant is the Des Plaines, Arlington Heights, Mount Prospect, and Palatine Water Commission of Illinois.

The project will cost an estimated $18,520,000 and the initial planning will include borings, lake soundings, topographical surveys, treatment facilities, preliminary designs and cost estimates. The Commission proposes to start construction by the Fall of 1959.

Des Plaines, Mount Prospect, Arlington Heights and Palatine, all in Cook County, have experienced rapid growth and territorial expansion in recent years with a resulting burden on the existing well water supply and distribution facilities of these four municipalities. The water level drilled into the local sandstone formation is being lowered at an average rate of seven to 10 feet a year, and the communities face a possibility of an early shrinkage or failure of well water as a source of supply.

This project is being assisted under the Program of Advances for Public Works Planning, authorized by the Housing Act of 1954, as amended. This program provides interest-free advances for planning essential public works and community facilities. Advances are repayable on start of construction.

Chicago will use a Federal "demonstration" grant of $54,663 to study methods of measuring renewal approaches to run-down neighborhoods and to develop and test techniques designed to help transients and immigrants to adjust to a new environment, it was announced by Urban Renewal Commissioner Richard L. Steiner.

Locale of the project is Chicago's South Side "Woodlawn" neighborhood, where blight is developing from the impact of transients and immigrants and conversion of most existing residential structures to multiple-family and rooming house use. Supervised by the city's Community Conservation Board, the undertaking will put primary emphasis on assimilating and urbanizing newcomers to the city.

The Board plans to make maximum use of existing municipal services as a means for early detection and elimination of neighborhood deterioration.

Some of the methods and techniques to be developed, improved, or tested during the project include: sample surveying of structures and population in transient areas to determine causes and effects of neighborhood deterioration; enforcing overcrowding provisions of Chicago's new housing code; enforcing various local codes through task force teams; use of Federal Housing Administration mortgage insurance programs covering housing for the aged, cooperative housing, rehabilitated housing, and relocation housing. The Board will use a group of residential structures as case studies for the best approaches to rehabilitation.

After completion of the project in 18 months, Chicago expects to use the Board's findings in other areas of the city. A published report of the findings also will be available to other communities facing similar problems.

Federal funds for the demonstration grant program are authorized by the Housing Act of 1954, which provides grants of up to two-thirds of the cost of projects designed to improve urban renewal techniques. The city's share will consist of facilities and services furnished by the Department of Streets and Sanitation, the Department of Buildings, and the Community Conservation Board, and $10,000 in cash from the South East Chicago Commission, the combined local contribution, amounting to $29,631, exceeds the required one-third local share.

About 13 acres of slums in Chicago's "Washington-Hermitage" urban renewal project will be eliminated with the aid of a $1,099,826 Federal loan and a $874,836 capital grant approved by Urban Renewal Commissioner Richard L. Steiner.

The predominantly residential project area is located two miles west of the city's central business

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Illinios Municipal Review 183 August, 1958


FEDERAL GRANTS

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district. It contains 264 dwelling units, of which all but a few are substandard. The 355 families living in the area will be offered relocation in decent, safe, and sanitary quarters, as required by law.

Project land, after clearance, will be reused primarily for new facilities for the Mary A. Thompson Hospital. New commercial installations also will be included.

Estimated net cost of the project is $1,250,714. This represents the difference between the cost of acquiring, clearing, and preparing the land for its new uses and the return from its resale at fair value. The $874,826 Federal grant covers part of this deficit and includes an amount for aiding in the relocation of site residents. Chicago's contribution will cover the remainder of the loss.

North Chicago, Illinois, on Lake Michigan adjacent to the Great Lakes Naval Training Station north of Chicago, received from Housing Administrator Albert M. Cole approval of its workable program for the elimination of slums and blight. The city proposes to preserve stable neighborhoods, prevent development of slums and encourage a balance of industrial and residential uses.

North Chicago has one urban renewal project comprising 172 acres in the North Argonne neighborhood, for which preliminary planning has been completed.

North Chicago has building, electrical and plumbing codes and fire prevention and air pollution ordinances conforming to approved national standards and of recent adoption. A minimum housing code was adopted last May.

The local Planning Agency with assistance of consultants has developed a comprehensive community plan including land use, thoroughfare and community facilities plans and subdivisions regulations. A zoning ordinance was completely revised in August 1957, and preliminary plans have been completed for a long-range public improvements program which will relate the cost of each project to priorities established on the basis of need and ability to finance.

A program of neighborhood analyses has also been completed by the consultants with delineation of all residential neighborhoods on the basis of size, school districts, open spaces, shopping centers and streets. Special studies are to be made of deterioration in areas designated for conservation and rehabilitation.

The City recognizes its responsibility for relocating in decent, safe and sanitary housing families displaced by urban renewal or other governmental actions, but to the present relocation housing supplied by private enterprise has absorbed the displaced families.

Home building companies have expressed interest in a private program of new construction on the renewal project area. The city also may request Section 221 FHA mortgage insurance assistance for private dwellings and an allocation from the Public Housing Administration of low-rent units.

Springfield, capital of Illinois, incorporated as a city in 1842 and with an estimated population in

Illinois Municipal Review 195 August, 1958


1956 of 87,500, received from Housing Administrator Albert M. Cole approval of its workable program to eliminate its slums and blight and guide its orderly development.

Springfield has one urban renewal project in final planning stage. It is a 15 1/2-acre area known as Subdivision "A".

The City has building, electrical and plumbing codes which will be subjected to restudy, and work is underway on a minimum housing code scheduled for adoption in September. There is adequate inspection and enforcement personnel.

Springfield's Planning Department which functions jointly with the Sangamon County Regional Planning Commission, was established in 1955. Its staff includes an executive director, one senior and two junior planners, a planning aide, draftsman, and clerical help, operating on a 1958 budget of $34,200.

In developing a comprehensive community plan, the Department has in hand an interim land use plan which will serve as a guide until the new plan is completed next year. A thoroughfare plan is scheduled for revision in accordance with the land use plan. Studies have been started on a community facilities plan and a public improvements program. Subdivision regulations applicable to areas 1 1/2 miles outside the city, are described as up-to-date and accurate.

A new zoning ordinance is expected to be completed in 1959. It will supersede an ordinance of 1934 which has been weakened by wide-spread spot commercial zoning and excessive granting of variances.

A program of neighborhood analyses has been started by the Planning Department with an analysis of the 1950 Housing Census data by blocks, and statistical estimates have been made of the total community blight, substandard units have been indicated, and the causes of blight identified. Later all residential neighborhoods will be delineated with recommendations for corrective action.

The City accepts responsibility for relocation in decent, safe and sanitary housing families displaced by urban renewal or other public actions, and the Housing Authority, which has 599 low-rent public units under its management, will take over the relocation task.

A 20-member Citizens Urban Renewal Committee, appointed by the Mayor, and representing a broad cross-section of community interests, will cooperate with the authorities in the urban renewal activities.

A loan of $38,000 to the Village of Goodfield, Woodford County, Illinois, for the construction of a water system was announced by Commissioner John C. Hazeltine of the Community Facilities Administration. The project will include a deep well, turbine pump, storage tank and distribution lines.

Goodfield is a community of about 3,000 persons 15 miles southeast of Peoria. Its present water supply is based on shallow wells and cisterns which are subject to septic tank pollution.

This loan is contingent on the inability of the applicant to obtain private financing at reasonable terms.

Approval of an advance of $47,000 to the village of Bridgeview, Cook County, Illinois, to finance planning for construction of a water system was announced by Commissioner John C. Hazeltine of the Community Facilities Administration. The project will cost an estimated $1,301,280 and the applicant proposes to start construction by March 1959.

Bridgeview, in the Chicago Metropolitan Area, has an estimated population of 5,400 with only a small area now served by a private water system. The community's growth potential appears to depend largely on the construction of a public water supply. The village proposes to purchase the private system and set up a unified water system to serve the expanding industrial area.

This project is being assisted under the Program of Advances for Public Works Planning, authorized by the Housing Act of 1954, as amended. This program provides interest-free advances for planning essential public works and community facilities. Advances are repayable on start of construction.

A loan of $83,000 to the Village of Milton, Pike County, Illinois, to finance construction of a waterworks system, was announced by Commissioner John C. Hazeltine of the Community Facilities Administration.

The project will include two deep wells and a distribution system for a community of 337 persons (1950). Many of its private wells have run dry and water is hauled into the village at an excessive cost to the residents.

This loan is contingent on the inability of the applicant to obtain private financing on reasonable terms.

A Federal loan of $158,000 to the Village of Neoga, Cumberland County, Illinois, to finance with $40,000 of the applicant's funds construction of improvements to its water system, was announced by Commissioner John C. Hazeltine of the Community Facilities Administration.

The village proposes to develop a surface water supply from a lake now under construction by the city of Mattoon, 10 miles north. The project will include an intake structure, raw water pumping units and delivery lines, treatment plant, transmission lines and an elevated storage tank.

This loan is contingent on the applicant's inability to secure private financing at reasonable rates.

Neoga is a community of 1,125 persons (1950) which obtains its water from a single well built in 1923. This supply has become inadequate.

Illinois Municipal Review 196 August, 1958


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