Chicago’s northern lakefront has become the battleground for an ongoing dispute over its future developments in the 48^th Ward. 

Voters next week will decide whether to endorse a referendum opposing the planned expansion of the lakefront bike path from Hollywood Avenue, where it currently ends, to Evanston. Existing designs would require the creation of an off-shore island. 

The project, headed by the advocacy organization Friends of the Parks (FOTP), has been met by criticism from StopTheLandfill.org, an informal group of Edgewater residents who fashioned the referendum after a similar one introduced in Rogers Park last fall.  

Though not legally binding, the referendum is “meant to put the community’s view of the project on record,” says John Redell, Edgewater resident and administrator of StopTheLandfill.org.  

The group asserts that the project, entitled “The Last 4 Miles,” will involve the construction of a landfill in the lake, and may eventually lead to the extension of Lake Shore Drive.  

Jim Marlowe, an Edgewater resident, had not known about the project until a few weeks ago when a pamphlet endorsing the prohibition was slipped under his door. “If this project is initiated,” he asks, “will it be limited to a bike path?”  

Marlowe shares a suspicion with others in the neighborhood that the project will lead to unwanted construction, in an area he feels is already underused and not in need of development. “The organization should be called the Enemies of the Parks,” he says, half-jokingly.  

“Rather than trying to figure out what the community wants, they’ve given us a sales pitch,” says Redell, in regard to public forums held by the FOTP in the past.  

According to StopTheLandfill.org, the FOTP ignored overwhelming votes in opposition of their project from South Shore residents in February. The website goes on to state that none of the FOTP’s board members live within the 60660 zip code. 

John O’Connell, Vice President of Administration and Development of the Friends of the Parks, says the organization has been paying careful attention to public opinion, adding that the referendum does not address the real issues. 

"At every public forum we have ever conducted, we have not advocated the extension of Lake Shore Drive, commercial development on the lakefront, or a landfill,” says O'Connell.

The word ‘landfill,’” he says, “implies a garbage dump.” 

Mike Chrzastowski, Senior Coastal Geologist at the Illinois State Geologist Survey, says the correct term is "lakefill," indicating the project would involve clean sand and clay.

“No one is proposing a landfill," he says. "State law would not allow garbage in a lakefill.”

Aside from possible environmental repercussions, Redell claims that the major issue lies in the project’s financial consequences. “With a $420 million shortfall in the cities budget, where is this money going to come from?” He asks. 

Friends of the Parks will spend the next few months studying potential ecological effects of the extension, researching funding sources, and working to publish their findings based on three years of public forums.