If Mayor Brandon Johnson hopes to confront Chicago’s affordability crisis by leveling the playing field between renters and landlords, he’ll have to defeat the same real estate interests that shot down his Bring Chicago Home referendum.
That much was obvious Monday after Johnson introduced his “Protecting Renters Ordinance,” and the Housing Committee chaired by one of his closest City Council allies — progressive firebrand Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez (25th) — held its first public hearing on the mayor’s ordinance.
“The resistance we face will be fierce. Corporate interests are already organizing to preserve the status quo. But we will not back down,” Johnson said Monday before the hearing.
Landlords showed up in force to protest an ordinance that would ban move-in fees and other “junk fees” without a documented cost, offer legal representation for income-eligible tenants and require landlords to provide a $10,000 payment or 10 months’ rent — whichever is greater — to tenants evicted or not renewed without “just cause.”
“It’s going to become stricter and stricter for the housing provider to approve that tenant because they have to renew their lease forever,” one landlord told the committee.
Another point of contention is the proposed annual registration fee of $20 per unit to generate $20 million a year for inspections, attorneys and other enforcement costs. That fee is part of a provision within the ordinance that would establish a rental registry to log of who owns the city’s more than 500,000 rental units, and whether those landlords are complying with the law. That measure was included in Johnson’s proposal in reaction to a WBEZ/Chicago Sun-Times story about how landlords often set up limited liability companies to mask who they are — creating an anonymity that makes it hard to hold problem landlords accountable.
The mayor’s original version would have required $10,000 in compensation to tenants who chose to move out to avoid “unconscionable rent increases.”
But that provision has been removed amid complaints that it could be a dangerous first step toward rent control, which would require a change in state law. A proposal that building owners provide interest on security deposits has also been dropped.
The changes were not enough to satisfy building owners.
“Costs this large do not simply disappear. They are absorbed into the rental market through higher rents, deferred maintenance and fewer available units,” said Miguel Chacon, policy committee vice chair for the Chicago Association of Realtors. “Chicago’s housing crisis will not be solved by making rental housing harder to provide, which is what this ordinance does.”
Edgewater community activist John Holden, who owns several small residential buildings, warned that “piling on” landlords at a time when property taxes, insurance and utility costs are soaring might be the “straw that breaks the camel’s back.”
“If we start driving out all the small mom-and-pop landlords and everything falls into the hands of corporate landlords,” Holden said, “we’re really going to have a housing problem in this city. Please don’t make life much worse for small landlords.”
Johnson’s policy chief, Jung Yoon, said the relocation assistance required of mom-and-pop landlords has been reduced “in an understanding of the different types of burdens” building owners face.
Monday’s three-hour hearing showcased the City Council’s philosophical divide between progressive and Democratic Socialist members and the Council’s moderate and conservative Democrats.
Ald. Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez (33rd) pointed to the owner of 70-plus Northwest Side residential buildings who can only be reached for 30 minutes each morning.
“This was affordable housing, but he was also a slumlord. It was incredibly difficult to get them to fix things in the apartment,” Rodriguez-Sanchez said. “Most of the people who lived in the units are very vulnerable people. … And it was enraging to see people bringing all of these concerns to our office over and over and over and not having a way to hold this landlord accountable.”
Ald. Anthony Quezada (35th) said building housing and strengthening renters’ protections “are not competing goals. They go hand in hand.”
Zoning Committee Chair Gilbert Villegas (36th) said building owners are “in the business to make money” and they will almost certainly “pass this on to the renter.”
“I know you want to get this going. But if we can have further discussions on how to make this a little bit better so, that way, some of us can support it, I would appreciate it,” Villegas said.
Finance Chair Pat Dowell (3rd) noted that direct introductions to committee are supposed to be limited to emergencies and “this does not seem to be an emergency.”
When Yoon said top mayoral aides have “heard plenty of stories from tenants who can’t afford to wait,” Dowell said, “That’s a bunch of junk.”