Broadway Legal Update: Judge Dismisses ERRDs Case against City – Appeal Likely
On June 29, 2026, Cook County Circuit Court Judge Neil Cohen granted the City of Chicago’s Motion to Dismiss the lawsuit filed by Edgewater Residents for Responsible Development (ERRD) and 13 individual Edgewater businesses and property owners. The lawsuit challenges the City’s indiscriminate upzoning of properties on Broadway (and its cross streets) between Devon and Foster. Judge Cohen issued a 10-page opinion with his decision.
ERRD President Patricia Sharkey provided the following statement in response to this decision:
As an organization dedicated to Chicagoans’ right to participate in government decisions that directly affect their neighborhoods and their lives, we are shocked by this decision.
Judge Cohen’s narrow reading of who is entitled to notice and an opportunity to be heard and the principles governing valid zoning decisions is contrary to 60 years of Illinois law – as well as the fundamental tenets of due process and fairness.
As stated by the Illinois Appellate Court in 2020:
“‘[N]otice’ is no casual word in the context of zoning matters. It refers to the constitutional due process rights of property owners to have a say in governmental decisions made about their own or neighboring properties. See Passalino v. City of Zion, 237 Ill. 2d 118, 124 (2010). Zoning laws tell citizens what they can and cannot do with their property. The idea that the government can change those rules without first giving notice to the interested public is antithetical to a free society and incompatible with the principles of due process, as well as the Illinois …Municipal Code.” Sullivan v. Village of Glenview, 2020 Ill. App (1st) 200142
Illinois statutes provide that “the principles of substantive and procedural due process apply at all stages of the decision-making and review of all zoning decisions.” Illinois Municipal Code Section 11-13-25
Yet the Judge here ruled that neighboring property owners — and even owners of properties that were directly upzoned with no notice whatsoever — have no rights and no recourse in the courts. This is simply wrong.
ERRD and its thirteen Co-Plaintiffs will be evaluating their next steps, but this is too important to the lives of Edgewater residents and businesses for this narrow view of citizens’ rights to be the last word.
An appeal is likely. Stay tuned.