The Chicago Park District and Board of Education voted Tuesday to swap more than 170 acres of parks, field houses and playing fields as part of a far-reaching agreement designed to end years of bitter disputes over the shared facilities.
Under the agreement, Chicago Public Schools will use approximately 76 park district facilities and the park district will have access to 25 Board of Education properties. The accord, for the first time, will spell out the hours each can use the facilities.
Some of the buildings on the land cannot be repaired and youth programs have been sidelined because of the the confusion over hours and owners.
The agreement gives the school board title to 67 acres and 10 recreational facilities, including buildings and parks near schools and surrounding playing fields. The park district will have title or long-term lease to about 108 acres, including an urban nursery.
The park district board voted 5-0 in favor of the agreement. But as park district board members emphasized the need for the agreement, residents across the city worried about how the plan would change things at their local parks and area schools.
”I support the idea of the plan,” Sylvia Royt, president of the Promontory Point park advisory council, told the board. ”But I want to know whether I`ll be able to swim during the hours I like at my pool (at Dyett Middle School).”
Earlier in the day, the interim Board of Education approved the controversial land swap, despite protests from the parents and school officials at the Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences.
”For decades, the public schools and the park district have shared the use of facilities, often with no written agreement to resolve disputes,” said Supt. Ted Kimbrough. ”With this arrangement, everybody wins.”
The school council at the agricultural high school, though, had opposed the swap because it would result in the loss of 23 acres. Council members said the land is needed to meet curriculum requirements at the school.
The agreement faces final revision before being signed. Tuesday`s votes authorize the school and park superintendents to make minor changes in the accord after local school councils give their final suggestions this month. Then, Park District Supt. Robert Penn and Kimbrough are to sign the agreement, which extends through 1995.
The park district is discussing a similar arrangement with the Chicago Housing Authority.
”We need to figure out who`s using what and who owns what,” said Shawnelle Richie, spokeswoman for the park district. ”Informal arrangements are no way to run a business.”
