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Activists demand more affordable housing near Obama Presidential Center

By FOX 32 Digital Staff
Updated  December 11, 2021 10:02pm CST
Woodlawn
FOX 32 Chicago

Obamas break ground on Chicago Presidential Center

After five years of legal battles, gentrification concerns and a federal review, Barack and Michelle Obama dug shovels into the ground Tuesday during a celebratory groundbreaking on their legacy project in a lakefront Chicago park.

CHICAGO - With construction now underway for the Obama Presidential Center, homeowners and renters in Woodlawn are demanding the City of Chicago protect affordable housing.

On Saturday, the Obama CBA Coalition called on Mayor Lori Lightfoot to follow through with the "Woodlawn Housing Preservation" ordinance and designate 52 city-owned vacant lots near the Presidential Center for affordable housing.

Their request includes all the city-owned vacant lots on 63rd Street, east of Cottage Grove Avenue.

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"We need this proposal to be approved," said Autumn Infiniti of the Obama CBA Coalition. "We need it so our single mothers and our residents who work two or three jobs are able to stay in their neighborhood -- a neighborhood that they have worked to keep afloat. If we are not able to get this proposal passed, we are all at risk of being displaced."

The Obama CBA Coalition says zoning would be allocated on the vacant lots which would allow for up to 1,000 affordable housing units to be built.

Members of the coalition say the city's most recent proposal would create less than 300 units.