Mayor Brandon Johnson’s City Council opposition on Thursday strengthened its hand in the battle to determine how much protection Chicago will give to more than 600,000 renters.
One day after the Council’s Housing Committee narrowly approved Johnson’s watered-down ordinance — minus a “just cause” provision that would have required landlords to make relocation payments to evicted tenants — the Zoning Committee approved a rival version favored by some of the same real estate interests that blocked Johnson’s “Bring Chicago Home” referendum. The Thursday vote was 12 to 6.
Johnson’s version would establish a registry to log who owns the city’s more than 500,000 rental units and whether those landlords are complying with the law. It also would create a new Bureau of Rental Housing Services to establish and enforce new standards landlords must follow to guarantee safe and sanitary living conditions. And a “Renters Bill of Rights” would require landlords to clearly explain all fees, ban move-in fees and require landlords to choose between monthly and annual pet fees.
The ordinance includes an annual registration fee of $20 per unit that’s expected to raise $22 million a year to cover inspections, attorneys and other enforcement costs.
The measure championed by Zoning Chair Gilbert Villegas (36th) has some similarities, but also differs from Johnson’s proposal in many respects. There is no registration fee, no rental housing bureau, and an office of rental services would rely on existing staff rather than new hirings.
To confront what Villegas says are the root causes of rising rents, the alternative plan sets a 180-day deadline for the city’s buildings commissioner to devise a plan to expedite housing permits and eliminate other red tape standing in the way of housing construction.
“We want to put forward a path for housing providers and signal to folks that want to invest in housing that we’re open for these investments,” Villegas said. “The stress that is occurring right now in the rental market is because of lack of supply. That’s why our ordinance talks about that as well… trying to figure out how to get a path to predictability on investments in Chicago.”
Now that dueling ordinances have both been approved by City Council committees, the stage is set for negotiations to start. Within minutes of Thursday’s vote, the mayor’s office reached out to arrange a Friday bargaining session.
Villegas won’t be going to that meeting alone. His colleagues in what Johnson likes to call the “corporate caucus” want to be there as well.
Villegas said he will not be rushed into striking a deal in time for a potential vote at Wednesday’s City Council meeting.
“We’re not gonna be put in a position where we’re trying to negotiate something just to meet a timeline that the mayor wants,” Villegas said.
The mayor’s office responded to Thursday’s vote by saying the Johnson administration is “heartened the City Council is responding to the issues facing renters in our city.”
“As families are hit with ever-increasing fees and suffer from dangerous living conditions that go unaddressed, we’re encouraged there is a clear appetite to finally update Chicago’s renter protections, and we look forward to continuing to work with members to get this right for working Chicagoans,” the statement said.
However, the mayor’s office continued to contend that the alternative version “falls well short of delivering the relief working Chicagoans need because it has no “funding mechanism or meaningful enforcement tools,” and includes a “rollback of long-standing protections [that] would leave renters without the safeguards and peace of mind they deserve.”
Well aware that Chicago’s roughly 600,000 renters could help determine the outcome of the mayoral election, Johnson is racing to secure the strongest protections he can get.
“At a time when costs keep going up, working families in our city cannot afford to contend with negligent landlords and corporate consolidation on their own,” the statement said, calling the mayor’s “Protecting Renters Ordinance” the “only option that takes concrete steps to rein in the affordability crisis while providing the city the tools it needs to keep Chicagoans safe in their homes.”