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CTA board retreat probes TOD role, legal limits and next steps
Summary
Board members and staff at the Chicago Transit Authority Board retreat spent multiple sessions on transit‑oriented development (TOD), discussing legal and policy limits on land use, examples of recent projects, and asking staff to return with concrete options and resource needs to pursue an equity‑focused TOD program.
At a board retreat hosted off the regular meeting schedule, Chicago Transit Authority Board members and staff focused a large portion of the morning and early afternoon on transit‑oriented development and how the agency should position itself going forward.
Board members and staff said CTA faces both legal constraints and internal policy limits when it tries to use or hold land for development. Kara Bader, vice president of strategy and innovation, briefed the board on three recurring barriers: statutory restrictions in the MTA Act, Federal Transit Administration rules linked to federally funded assets, and CTA’s own procurement policies and procedures (PP&Ps). “If we own a lot we have to basically be using it for providing transit,” Bader told the board, explaining how the enabling statute limits CTA’s ability to acquire or hold property for purely non‑transit uses.
The nut of the discussion was practical: how to…
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