More than a year after its planned introduction, an environmental ordinance that aims to address decades of discriminatory planning, zoning and land-use policies in Chicago will finally be brought before the City Council.

But some community activists are blasting city officials for not making the ordinance available to the public beforehand — a move they call alienating after a mostly collaborative partnership with Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration.

The ordinance would be the next step after the 2023 release of a cumulative impact assessment that analyzed how exposure to toxins, socioeconomic factors and health conditions vary throughout Chicago. That report was part of a voluntary compliance agreement negotiated with the federal government following a two-year federal investigation that found the city culpable of steering heavy industry away from white communities and into Black and Latino communities. The report is also a tool that will be used to inform future policies, officials have said.

“I’ve asked for the full ordinance. I never got it. I asked some of the aldermen that are sitting here around the tables: ‘Have you seen it?’ No. It’s hush-hush,” said Theresa Reyes McNamara, chair of the Southwest Environmental Alliance, at a Wednesday public meeting of the City Council Committee on Environmental Protection and Energy. She has previously protested the presence of the Sims Metal scrap metal shredder, which has a history of air pollution violations in the Pilsen neighborhood. The city renewed the facility’s operating permit in December.

“We, the people on the outside, are fighting,” she told the group of around a dozen City Council members, her voice rising, “but we need you on the inside to be pushing.”

According to a spokesperson for the mayor, city ordinances are not made public before their introduction, but Chicagoans will be able to review the ordinance in its entirety and engage in public comment and debate once it is brought to the council floor, likely on April 16.

The review process could take months. But some community activists say they are being left out of one of the final stages after investing heavily in a lengthy process that was not without disagreements.

Other community activists are more concerned with first getting the ordinance passed.

“Together we stand, divided we fall,” said Cheryl Johnson, executive director of the nonprofit People for Community Recovery and the daughter of Hazel M. Johnson — known as the “mother” of the environmental justice movement for her activism in Chicago more than 40 years ago — after whom the ordinance will be named. “It took a lot to get here and we can continue to build on the framework in the ordinance and add teeth. My mother worked too hard for us to not make progress on this. I’d rather have a start than nothing at all.”

On Wednesday, a spokesperson for the Department of Environment said in a statement that the city remained committed to advancing environmental justice “and ensuring that all communities, particularly those most impacted by industrial pollution, have a voice in shaping policies that affect their health and environment.” The ordinance is a critical step toward addressing inequities while strengthening regulatory oversight, the spokesperson said.

“Despite inaccurate claims, the City has prioritized co-governance throughout this process to ensure that local frontline leaders and City leaders work side by side from the design of the analysis through ordinance implementation,” the statement said. “We will continue to work collaboratively with frontline leaders, community residents, advocates, and leaders across all sectors to implement this important policy and build a healthier, more equitable Chicago.”

For starters, the ordinance would require health assessments to be carried out at the beginning of the permitting process for new developments or existing facility expansions. Respiratory and cardiac disease are disproportionately prevalent in communities of color where residents live in industrial zones or areas with heavy traffic.

Ensuring these public health protections before a project is approved is a “desperately” needed first step toward environmental justice, said Óscar Sanchez, co-executive director of the Southeast Environmental Task Force and part of an environmental equity working group of community members convened by the city to share feedback and ideas as the Department of Law drafted the ordinance.

“It’s not the final step, I’ll say that,” Sanchez said. “Right now, we need something when everything else is failing us. I’ll be more explicit: When every other level of government is failing us, … we have the city meeting with us.”

This comes as President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency overhaul and slash federal government funds and workforce, Sanchez said.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin is attempting to roll back regulations that have reduced emissions of mercury, lead, soot and cancer-causing chemicals, among other things.

Sanchez said Chicago has in the ordinance an opportunity to set an example for the state and the nation on moving forward without sacrificing vulnerable communities. The nitty-gritty of its implementation will be the next step.

But it’s precisely not knowing the specifics of the ordinance and its enforcement mechanisms that dissatisfied activists say has put them on edge.

“What we really want (is) an ordinance that is going to protect the people, not the industry or corporations,” said Baltazar Enriquez, president of the Little Village Community Council.

Southeast Side resident Anne Holcomb emphasized a sense of urgency as worries grow in her community about the environmental impacts of a PsiQuantum computing facility that will be built in the area.

“We need the Hazel Johnson ordinance to be a real ordinance,” she said, “not a paper tiger, and not a pacifier thrown to the community to say, ‘Oh, we did our jobs. Everything is great. Your environment is safe.’ And we know it’s not.”

Without downplaying or undermining the frustrations many Chicagoans, including himself, have felt with the legislative process, Sanchez emphasized the need for community advocates to continue actively participating in it at such a pivotal stage.

“We need to be aligned and working together to be creating these protections, to be part of this now,” he said. “What are we doing to ensure that this is going to pass within the City Council? What are we going to get done right now?”

adperez@chicagotribune.com