A federal judge dealt a severe blow to former President Barack Obama’s hopes of building a massive presidential library complex on Chicago’s South side Tuesday, allowing Protect Our Parks, an advocacy organization dedicated to preserving designated public land, to go forward with its lawsuit challenging the project.

U.S. District Judge John Robert Blakey, an Obama appointee, issued the ruling allowing Protect Our Parks to challenge the city of Chicago’s grant of more than 20 acres of historic Jackson Park to the Obama presidential library project for a pittance — reportedly a mere $10 for an indefinite lease on the land, Fox News reports.

Jackson Park is a federally recognized historic park designed by Frederick Olmsted, the same landscape designer who fashioned New York City’s Central Park. The city of Chicago wants to “lease” 20 acres of the 500 acre park to the Obama library, allowing the former president to use the park’s land indefinitely for “a 225-foot museum tower, surrounded by a cluster of smaller buildings, including a 300-seat auditorium.”

In 2012, during President Obama’s tenure, the federal government reiterated its commitment to preserving Jackson Park, calling the land “inappropriate” for development because of its historical value.

Protect Our Parks argues that the land should be preserved as-is, and that the Obama presidential foundation could have explored other options, placing the complex on vacant land, of which Chicago’s South Side has plenty.

“The Obama Foundation and the University of Chicago created this controversy by insisting on the confiscation of public parkland,” said Charles A. Birnbaum, President & CEO of The Cultural Landscape Foundation told The Daily Wire in an emailed statement. “The Obama Foundation could make this issue go away by using vacant and/or city-owned land on the South Side for the Obama Presidential Center (which is planned to be a private facility rather than a presidential library administered by the National Archives), or, better still, land owned by the University of Chicago, which submitted the winning bid to host the Center.” – READ MORE