Deadline Extended, Participate in Shaping Cicero’s Future

Image description: In a gray grid are the shapes of streets, houses and buildings throughout the grid of a map. A yellow thin line makes a rectangle around a white transparent gray grid of a map that marks the border of Cicero. Throughout the grid a…

Image from the online zoning map from the Town of Cicero

By Irene Romulo

A group of Cicero residents wants others to get involved in shaping Cicero’s future by participating in the Town of Cicero’s efforts to update its zoning map.

“Zoning is a method of urban planning in which a municipality divides land into different areas and each of those areas have a set of regulations and codes to allow authorities to regulate and control land,” explained Nat Carreno at a recent bilingual virtual meeting hosted by a group called The People’s Town Hall.

The Town of Cicero is currently undergoing a project to redo the zoning map of Cicero as part of its first Comprehensive Plan since 1974. The process to create a Comprehensive Plan began in 2014 and is supposed to “provide a new strategic vision and direction for Cicero,” according to a 2017 report. The report is only available in English as well as the website for the zoning project.

At the virtual meeting, Delia Barajas explained that zoning is important because it is related to what is built, like schools or parks, on “potentially contaminated land” and it impacts the industries that are allowed to come into Cicero, like the Amazon warehouse.

The Comprehensive Plan serves as a guidebook for elected officials to make decisions about land use, open space, housing, infrastructure, transportation and economic development.

In order to participate, Cicero residents can leave questions and comments about their vision for the Town of Cicero directly online by visiting this online map. At time of publication, twenty comments have been left on the map which is only available in English. The full plan can be read here. The deadline for comments has been extended until March 21. For additional details readers can visit The People’s Town Hall Facebook page.

Irene Romulo is a contributing reporter and editor at Cicero Independiente.