Cabrini NOW

Overview

Cabrini NOW is a community-driven planning and design effort to improve the Cabrini neighborhood through new housing and economic development on CHA properties. This effort will result in a plan that will guide what gets built and how investments are made in the area. Cabrini NOW is all about making sure your voice is heard! We want to hear from everyone in Cabrini to create a plan that truly reflects what the community wants and needs.

This initiative will:

Update and build on the existing 2015 community plans and vision in a changing neighborhood context.
Respond to the current and future affordable housing needs of the neighborhood and Chicago.
Embrace all voices in the neighborhood and co-create a shared vision for Cabrini’s future.

The Cabrini NOW process does not change any of CHA’s legal requirements for developing the remaining land at Cabrini. Based on the current Cabrini-Green Consent Decree, future housing development across the whole Cabrini area will result in a mixed-income community. The Federal court requires a strict mix of 33-40% public housing, no more than 20% affordable housing, and no more than 50% market rate housing.

Across the Cabrini NOW process, we’ve had 3 community meetings and about 30 stakeholder meetings and engagements to get input on what should be included in the plan. The Cabrini NOW process has progressed across 3 phases, with several stakeholder meetings and engagements throughout each phase and a community meeting at the end of each phase. To briefly summarize the three phases of Cabrini NOW:

We listened to community members about their desires and priorities for the Cabrini area.
Based on community input from the first phase, we suggested and obtained feedback on draft planning and design strategies for how to redevelop CHA-owned sites in the area.
Finally, based on community feedback from the first and second phases and additional input from stakeholders in this third phase, we improved the draft strategies and combined them into a draft redevelopment plan.

For more information on the process of creating the plan, including the community meetings, the materials shared at those meetings, and the feedback we received at those meetings, please see below. The process is described by each community event, with the events listed from most recent to least recent.

Where are we in the process right now?

Our next main step is to publish a draft plan report with an opportunity for more public comment before we publish the final plan. As we communicated in our Cabrini NOW Draft Plan Presentation and Community Conversation event on December 11, 2024, we intended to finalize the Cabrini NOW report by the first quarter of 2025. We received a large amount of feedback at the December 11 event and in the comment period afterward, and have not been able to create a responsive, high quality draft plan report on the timeline we initially expected. We now anticipate releasing a full draft report no later than May 2025, with a 2 week public comment period for the draft report before we finalize the report. The full draft plan report will include engagement summaries from the community meetings, demographic and market context analysis, development framework, phasing plan, and financial feasibility analysis.

Our next steps are to:

Publish a draft plan by May 2025 (prior timeline was early 2025) with a 2 week-long opportunity for more public comment before we publish the final plan.
Begin applying for zoning changes and releasing site-specific solicitations for development partners on the first sites throughout 2025. Development partners will be recommended by CHA and the Near North Working Group, and need CHA Board approval.
Continue reaching out to you as we move forward with site specific development plans!

We want to hear from YOU! To sign-up for updates and receive a notice for the final comment period for the Cabrini NOW planning process, please email cabrininow@thecha.org. For the final comment period, you can also leave us a voice mail with input at 312-913-7030.

Community Event #3 — Draft Plan Presentation and Community Conversation (December 11, 2024)

On December 11, 2024, CHA hosted a Draft Plan Presentation and Community Conversation for Cabrini NOW. This event was the third and final community meeting planned for the Cabrini NOW process. The engagement summary of this meeting will be shared with the draft plan report by May 2025. More opportunities for community input on the future of CHA development in Cabrini will follow – please sign-up for updates by emailing cabrininow@thecha.org.

Check out the presentation recording and materials below to learn more about the draft redevelopment plan presented at the meeting!

We deeply appreciate about 120 Cabrini community members, including more than 20 CHA residents, joining us on December 11. The draft plan we presented was developed based on input we’ve received across the Cabrini NOW process throughout 2024, including community meetings on May 8 and July 31, about 30 stakeholder meetings and engagement, written input we’ve received so far, and prior planning work in the area.

Please see the video above and the materials linked below to see what was presented at the event. We held a period for receiving public comments on the materials presented at the December 11 event until January 8, 2025.

Close-up of a Cabrini NOW meeting display.

Community Event #2 — Ice Cream Social and Community Conversation (July 31, 2024)

We are very thankful that about 120 community members, including over 30 CHA residents, attended the Cabrini NOW Ice Cream Social and Community Conversation on July 31, 2024! Check out the presentation recording below to learn more about the first draft planning and design strategies that we shared and discussed with community members at the event!

After getting input from community members on their desires and priorities for the Cabrini area at our kickoff celebration on May 8, we created our first draft planning and design strategies for how to redevelop CHA-owned sites in the area. At our July 31 event, we shared those first drafts with community members and have since analyzed the input we received. The input from the event is documented and analyzed in the Cabrini NOW Event 2 Engagement Summary (also linked above in the December 11 event section).

Based on community input received at the July 31 event and additional input from a variety of stakeholders across 16 meetings and engagements, we refined the draft concepts towards a more finalized draft redevelopment plan, which we shared at our third community meeting. While we had hoped to have our third community meeting around September/October 2024, we needed more time than we expected to refine our materials and get input from stakeholders, so we held our third and final community meeting for Cabrini NOW on December 11.

To see what was presented at the July 31 community event, please see the video posted above and visit the links provided below.

Cabrini NOW Event

Community Event #1 — Kickoff Celebration (May 8, 2024)

On May 8, 2024, approximately 100 community members, including over 30 CHA residents, convened to discuss and provide input on future developments in the area. The insights gathered guided the creation of draft planning and design strategies, encompassing new housing, enhanced green spaces, improved transportation, and additional community investments. These draft planning and design strategies were presented at the following community event, which took place on July 31, to gather further feedback and refine the strategies towards a more finalized redevelopment plan. At the July 31 event, we also shared a summary of the feedback we received at the May 8 event and our key takeaways from it. The materials shared at the July 31 event, including a presentation recording, were emailed to event attendees and posted on our webpage in the July 31 event section.

To see the materials from the Kickoff Celebration on May 8, visit the links below: