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The mayor marked one year of his office’s Cut the Tape
initiative at the Chicago Cultural Center Monday.
The city’s chief operations officer, John Roberson, said the
city has made changes.
“We’ve streamlined permitting for affordable housing, removed
outdated barriers to commercial development and improved
coordination across departments to move projects forward more
quickly and more transparently,” Roberson said. “I want to say
that again, because at the heart of this, what Mayor Brandon
Johnson told us is to get bureaucracy out of the way.”
Johnson said an executive order he signed in 2023 was critical
to streamline the city’s development process.
“We want to foster the development and preservation of
affordable and market-rate housing. We wanted to bring more
economic activity through our commercial corridors,” Johnson
said.
ChicagoRED founder P Rae Easley provided The Center Square with
a statement in response.
“Mayor Johnson’s celebration of Cut The Tape is a celebration of
the growth of socialism in the city of Chicago. More taxpayer
funds are being diverted to non-for-profits as an invisible line
item in the campaigns of upcoming elections. As we lose more
industry in the city, social organizations emerge to take their
places and purchase votes in the form of grants instead of
benefits-paying jobs,” Easley stated.
At Monday’s event, the mayor did not discuss efforts to
streamline government spending.
Last month, Johnson announced the opening of an affordable
housing development on the city’s South Side, at a cost of
$810,345 per unit.
The city is facing a projected budget deficit of more than $1
billion.
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