Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot announced the City’s creation of an air quality reform agenda, an effort to improve Chicago’s air quality while promoting equitable economic growth. The new agenda will ground the City’s environmental policy in data provided in the Air Quality and Health Report and will introduce an ordinance at City Council that will reform zoning related to industrial and polluting uses, establish an Environmental Equity Working Group, and further reform regulations related to air pollution. 

The new agenda is rooted in data from the Air Quality and Health Report, which was created by the Chicago Department of Public Health. In the report the Department looked at both pollution levels and under-lying social and health equity issues faced by communities. The Department found that air quality issues like ozone and particulate matter remain a challenge citywide. The air quality agenda also includes an ordinance that changes the City’s Zoning Code to amend where manufacturing and other polluting sites may be located throughout the city. These changes will ensure that the economic activity provided by industrial and manufacturing uses will remain sufficiently separated from residences and small businesses. The ordinance will be introduced at the September City Council meeting and will be voted upon in October.  For more information about the City’s work to address environmental concerns please visit Chicago.gov/CDPH.