1) Campaign Email - jamesforillinois@gmail.com
2) YOUR PLATFORM: Link to your website about housing - jamesforillinois.com/issues
3) YOUR COMMUNITY: Is your district suffering from a housing shortage?
Yes, there is a severe housing shortage in the 13th State Representative District. Looking at Zillow there are a total of seven three-bedroom units under $500,000 for sale in a district of approximately 110,000 people. I consistently hear from people at the doors how expensive rent is and stories about bidding against as many as twenty other applicants just for a place to live. This anecdotal evidence is backed up by data showing that the 13th District is made up of approximately 2/3rds renters of whom 26.4% are cost burdened and 13.2% are severely housing cost burdened – all above the citywide data of 54%, 22.2% and 11.3%. And I suspect the numbers have become worse since the 2023 American Community Survey that reported them. Just this past week there was an article in the Wall Street Journal about soaring housing prices in Lincoln Square, but a similar story is playing out in all of the district. The housing shortage has reached crisis levels in the area.
4) YOUR RECORD: Are there pro-housing policies or specific housing developments you have supported in the past that you would like to highlight?
I am a strong supporter of recent legislative initiatives such as the City of Chicago’s recent ordinances to expand ADUs and eliminate minimum parking requirements near transit-served locations as well as the People Over Parking Act included in the transit omnibus the state legislature passed during veto session. There are also a series of proposed state legislative initiatives I support to expand ADUs statewide and in Chicago, foster three flats by right, and ensure affordability for renters and homeowners alike.
And while I have not had the opportunity to directly work on housing policy in a professional capacity yet, the lead House sponsor of historic statewide school funding reform in 2017 has publicly and repeatedly credited me with passage of the Evidence Based Funding model. This is a growth and affordability issue as the legislation has directed billions of dollars to Chicago Public Schools and other under resourced school districts throughout Illinois. The legislation has facilitated growth and kept families in Chicago by increasing the quality of schools and mitigating what property taxes otherwise would have been. Now the education and financial systems in Chicago are at a breaking point and I want to use my uniquely qualified background to advocate for additional school funding to facilitate a new era of growth in Chicago alongside housing, transit, and other policy focuses.
5) YOUR Plans: Housing costs are increasing for everyone, but renters in particular are bearing the brunt of this crisis, with many frequently spending 30, 40, and even 50% of their income on rent.
What can the State do to bring down prices for both subsidized and market rate housing, and what are some actions that you support in order to achieve that?
At its core, the cause of the affordability crisis is a housing shortage and there is a lot the State of Illinois can do to facilitate the build out of new units that will ultimately drive prices down to create affordability and allow Chicago and Illinois to grow. A few of the actions I support to reduce subsidized and market rate housing prices include:
- Allowing ADUs by right statewide. Legalizing ADUs statewide will help rapidly create additional housing stock and take advantage of economies of scale to foster demand to create ADU specific construction and bring down costs/construction timelines.
- Legalizing middle housing development to permit by right across the state. Allowing for 2-4 flats, townhomes, etc. to be built will provide more affordable housing options and help suppress overall housing prices. Middle housing in particular made Chicago what it is today and will be a core part of the housing stock that builds our future.
- Eliminating parking mandate requirements statewide. This will help better utilize land, increase housing stock, and promote public transit.
- Improving enforcement of the AHPAA by providing incentives for compliant municipalities and proper staffing for oversight and technical assistance.
- Expanding revolving loan funds to provide low interest loans for affordable housing development and conversion of vacant office space into residential units.
- Supporting state tax credits for developers of low-income housing developments, like the Build IL Homes Tax Credit Act, to work in tandem with the federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC).
- Increasing cost containment scoring criteria on the Illinois Housing Development Authority’s Qualified Allocation Plan scoring tracks (currently only accounts for 3% of total) to better incentivize LIHTC recipient developers to lower construction costs, leading to more overall units that can be supported by the tax credit.
- Providing support (funding, technical assistance, etc.) to emerging developers to foster Illinois’ construction capacity.
6) Would you work on state legislation to end local exclusionary zoning that only allows for single family homes , and require municipalities to allow apartments and other types of housing in all residential areas?
Yes, state preemption is critical to allowing more affordable housing options that will ultimately drive down costs. We should also learn from preemption initiatives in other states to ensure best practice implementation, such as avoiding a situation like California where municipalities have been able to undermine preemption efforts to foster more middle housing with overly restrictive local design requirements. My extensive experience with legislative drafting, negotiating, and implementation will help ensure bills that I champion will achieve their intended outcomes.
7) What kinds of housing would you like to see in communities that currently have exclusionary zoning?
I want to see a full range of housing options in communities with exclusionary zoning because ultimately that’s what will make housing affordable. This includes all the examples you gave: ADUs, duplexes, a suite of missing middle housing options, and subsidized affordable housing but also larger buildings (in particular mixed-use with ground-floor retail), public housing, apartments and condos with more efficiently designed layouts, and transit-oriented developments. This isn’t a foreign concept to Chicago as these diverse types of housing were the core of what built Chicago and allowed it to prosper as a walkable, diverse, and vibrant city.
8) Do you support “by right” permitting, where cities must make clear, objective zoning and building standards, thus allowing developers following these rules to build new projects without delay?
Yes and the enabling legislation must be drafted in such a way that the purpose is not diluted by overly restrictive local requirements that undermine the intention of the state law. Additionally, we need to create predictable permitting processes throughout Illinois using state law. Cities that slow walk approvals end up ultimately increasing the cost of new housing. Illinois should have enhanced “shot clock” provisions that guarantee homebuilders a specific timeline for approval. The additional stability will facilitate build out of new units and decrease housing costs.
9) How would you increase funding for Affordable Housing?
Yes and the enabling legislation must be drafted in such a way that the purpose is not diluted by overly restrictive local requirements that undermine the intention of the state law. Additionally, we need to create predictable permitting processes throughout Illinois using state law. Cities that slow walk approvals end up ultimately increasing the cost of new housing. Illinois should have enhanced “shot clock” provisions that guarantee homebuilders a specific timeline for approval. The additional stability will facilitate build out of new units and decrease housing costs.
10) The Affordable Housing Planning and Appeal Act (AHPAA) requires every Illinois municipality whose housing stock is less than 10% affordable to develop plans to increase the amount of affordable housing in the community and allows certain groups to file appeals when affordable housing developer’s proposal to build new affordable housing is improperly denied by an AHPAA community. Since the law’s passage in 2003, enforcement of AHPAA has been uneven, with only 10 of 44 communities subject to the law submitting compliant plans in 2024 and no appeals filed despite affordable developments regularly collapsing in AHPAA communities.
How would you improve AHPAA’s planning and appeal processes to ensure affordable housing developers face fewer barriers when proposing and building developments in our state’s most affluent communities?
I would advocate for several reforms to enhance the planning and appeal process of the AHPAA, such as:
• Allowing appeals for supportive and community integrated housing developments;
• Following up on the recently enacted missing middle study to ensure municipalities with least opportunity are developing and implementing robust plans to reverse course;
• Shorten the timeframe for appeal decisions by the Housing Appeals Board and ensure staffing to make this possible; and
• Shorten the timeframe by which Housing Appeals Board vacancies.
11) Are there any particular social or affordable housing models you support and would like to emulate in Illinois? (e.g. Austrian Social Housing, Montgomery County, etc.)
I support a gap financing approach via a statewide revolving loan fund to close financing gaps on development projects in return for guarantees of affordable housing units. This would allow for financially sustainable ways to provide low interest financing for new buildings that maximize housing supply by having state loans help offset lower rents and thereby create an incentive to build more affordable homes. If structured properly, the program would maximize state dollars per unit by drawing in private capital and directing it in ways that it would not have otherwise been. There are a couple ways this approach can be structured with several state models to emulate.
12) What are common-sense tenant protections you support?
I support common-sense tenant protections by increasing housing stability through development and housing abundance, anti-discrimination policies, banning penalties against tenants that result from requesting emergency assistance, anti-retaliation policies, clear and predictable notice requirements, and increasing free legal aid resources for counsel during eviction proceedings for low-income tenants.
13) Are there any active tenant protection laws in Illinois that you believe are not being properly enforced? How would you change this?
Habitability standards are often unevenly enforced depending on the capacity of the municipality, which could be improved with technical assistance grants to help modernize code enforcement as well as data transparency initiatives. Additionally, the enforcement of the Immigrant Tenant Protection Act is often underutilized and dedicated resources could be allocated to the Attorney General’s office to enhance enforcement.
