Community participation as a tool for conservation planning and historic preservation: the case of “Community As A Campus” (CAAC)

The objective of this article is to examine a community planning approach to urban conservation and rehabilitation. In Chicago, like in many other cities across the USA, there has been an unequal distribution of school closures in minority neighbourhoods with higher than average poverty rates. The closure of school buildings, most with historical value, has destabilizing effects in communities, including the loss of public assets, vacancies, and disinvestment. In neighbourhoods experiencing rent increases, such as with Humboldt Park, the use of historic properties can provide an opportunity to develop affordable housing and avoid displacement. This case study seeks to demonstrate how a grassroots organization in a gentrifying neighbourhood created their own participatory planning process to obtain a surplus school building and reuse it as a “teacher’s village”. The reuse plan includes affordable housing targeted primarily at school teachers, office space dedicated to educational-community-related uses, a café open to the public, and a number of other amenities. The overall development plan seeks to make significant upgrades to allow the building to operate sustainably for years to come. The building is expected to be placed on the National Register of Historic Places and will require a unique and sensitive approach to creating an inspiring, collaborative, and community-oriented development. The methodology employed in this article is based on Participatory Action Research and includes field notes and interviews. The researcher engaged as a participant–observer and committee member for about 1.5 years with “Community As A Campus”—the initiative dedicated to envisioning and planning the redevelopment project.