1) Campaign Email - votemussman@gmail.com
2) YOUR PLATFORM: Link to your website about housing - N/A
3) YOUR COMMUNITY: Is your district suffering from a housing shortage?
Yes
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 sit on the House Committee on Housing. This year I co-sponsored HB1147, HB1429, HB1813, HB1814, HB1843, HB2545, HB3288, HB3552, and sponsored HB1862 to help Homeless services providers. My office is a member of the Illinois Housing Council and AHAND. We also participate in the Housing and Community Development Initiatives subgroup of the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus. We are working with developers to try to create opportunities for senior housing in Roselle and Hanover Park. Participated this past September in the Center of Concern Housing Stability for Successful Aging Panel discussion.
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?
The state can modify parking requirements, invest in transit oriented development, create options for missing middle and accessory dwelling units, prevent municipalities from denying qualifying projects only due to "NIMBY" complaints, encourage local units of government to buy and manage affordable dwellings to keep them from being lost to gentrification
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
7) What kinds of housing would you like to see in communities that currently have exclusionary zoning?
Yes
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?
Accessory Dwelling Units, Duplexes, Missing Middle Apartment Buildings, Subsidized Affordable Housing, Transit Oriented Development, House sharing
9) How would you increase funding for Affordable Housing?
Yes
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?
Continue to support the grants that exist, it is a challenging time to increase funding solely for this need, when the state already has a functional budget deficit and the feds are being so unpredictable
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.)
Increase threshold to 15% and reduce options for denials
12) What are common-sense tenant protections you support?
No Answer
13) Are there any active tenant protection laws in Illinois that you believe are not being properly enforced? How would you change this?
I support the efforts of HB3564, Crime Free Housing needs to be updated
