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Chicago Bid Group Agrees to Affordable Housing If City Gets 2016 Games04-02-09 | News

Chicago Bid Group Agrees to Affordable Housing If City Gets 2016 Games

The Chicago Olympic Village would go here, just south of McCormick Place. The 37-acre lakefront development post Olympics would become a new mixed-use community. At minimum, 20 percent of that housing would be ????????(R)???????+???????(R)?????????EUR??,,????'?????<

For landscape architects in 2009, Chicago will be the gathering place for the annual ASLA Expo/meeting, Sept. 18-21.

The city, however, has its eye on hosting quite a larger event in the distant future. On April 14, 2007, the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) selected Chicago as the U.S. bid city for the 2016 Games (and the Paralympics). Chicago????????(R)???????+???????(R)?????????EUR??,,????'?????<

The IOC evaluation commission comes to Chicago April 2-8, 2009. The IOC will make its final decision for the host city for the 2016 Games in Oct. 2009.

Meanwhile, the Olympic bid team has signed an agreement with a city advisory council of community and minority leaders guaranteeing some economic benefits would go to minorities and resident groups if Chicago gets the 2016 Olympic bid.

The agreement guarantees at least 20 percent of the residential housing built for the Olympic Village on the South Side will become affordable city housing after the Games.

The agreement also sets a goal of at least 25 percent of the contracts going to minority-owned firms, and five percent going to women-owned firms.

The Chicago Olympic Village would be built just south of McCormick Place and would create 37 acres of new lakefront development. After the Games, the Olympic Village would become a new mixed-use community.

The Illinois legislature also passed a bill that would support the bid with a $250 million ????????(R)???????+???????(R)?????????EUR??,,????'?????<

If all this sounds like a lot of planning for only a possibility, the IOC has narrowed the field down from seven cities to just four: Rio de Janeiro, Madrid, Tokyo and Chicago.