Link to full article on Hyde Park Herald
Three bills introduced in Springfield in mid-February aim to make housing development simpler in Chicago and Illinois.
Drafted by local state Rep. Kam Buckner (D-26th) with suggestions from the grassroots group Abundant Housing Illinois, the legislative package consists of the Affordable Communities Act, the Local-Accessory Dwelling Units Act and the People over Parking Act. Together, these bills aim to increase housing stock in cities, thereby bringing down costs of living, organizers behind the proposals say.
Eshan Dosani, a fourth-year student at the University of Chicago and an Abundant Housing Illinois volunteer activist, was helping with overdose prevention efforts and aid to homeless Chicagoans last summer when he got connected with the organization.
“That kind of work brought me in contact quite a bit with the consequences of the housing crisis,” Dosani told the Herald.
Studies show a growing number of Chicagoans are rent burdened. A recent report from WBEZ found that the median cost of rent and utilities in Chicago grew 28% from 2000 to 2023, almost three times the city’s median household income. In all, about 129,000 renter households in Chicago – around one-fifth of the citywide total – make between $2,000 and $4,000 a month. Of those households, 30% spend a majority of their income on rent and utilities.
Groups like Abundant Housing Illinois argue that one solution to the crisis is the expedient creation of more housing. A way to do that quickly, organizers say, is to remove extant hurdles to building multifamily housing under current zoning laws and regulations.
“Housing has been held back by excessive and unnecessary regulation,” said James R. Anderson, a member of Abundant Housing Illinois. “It is impossible now, in large portions of Chicago, to build an apartment building of any size without petitioning for and being granted a zoning change.”
As of 2023, more than half of city land is zoned as residential, and about 80% of that is dedicated to single-family units. This, according to the Metropolitan Planning Council, means that 41% of land in the city is dedicated to single-family units.
This, organizers say, limits the supply of multifamily housing, which they argue drives up costs for both renters and prospective homeowners.
“The exciting thing about these bills is that they address the arbitrary restrictions on affordable housing supply,” Dosani said.
The Affordable Communities Act, or H.B. 3288, allows for the construction of multifamily housing by-right in any residential zone in cities with populations of 100,000 or greater. By-right development is development that can be built without needing discretionary review or approvals from planning commissions, zoning boards or other regulatory bodies. Advocates argue that this approach is faster and reduces overall development costs.
Dosani said that this bill “doesn’t ban single-family zoning,” it just “makes it so that you must be allowed to create multifamily housing by-right.”
The Local-Accessory Dwelling Units Act, orH.B. 3552, allows accessory dwelling units to be constructed by-right in all residential zones statewide. An accessory dwelling unit can be an apartment above or in place of a garage, often known as coach houses or “granny flats,” or a separate unit inside the main structure on a property.
The final bill in the package, People over Parking Act, orH.B. 3256 andS.B. 2352, bars cities from imposing minimum parking mandates on development projects located within a half mile of a transit hub. Aparking reform page on the city’s website, based on research done by advocacy group the Center for Neighborhood Technology, says that that city still “mandates specific amounts of off-street parking for new commercial and residential developments, even where it’s not needed.” These mandates, the site continues, leave less space for housing itself and increase construction costs, which may drive up rents.
Anderson emphasized the opportunity for high-density housing especially near area “L” stops.
“Especially if you look at the Bronzeville area, the green line stops at Indiana Avenue, and 43rd, and 47th, and 51st and Garfield Boulevard – There’s a lot of vacant land around there, and this should all be developed into medium- and high-density housing,” he said.
Dosani said the organization is pushing for these changes at the state level to circumvent aldermanic prerogative, a city counselor's final authority over zoning and permitting decisions in their wards. In some cases, aldermanic prerogative has been used to veto affordable housing and other developments in wards.
In 2023, according to reporting by the Sun-Times, federal investigators blasted the practice of aldermanic prerogative as discriminatory and a civil rights violation, as new affordable housing is “rarely, if ever constructed in majority-white wards.”
The federal probe found that several hundred affordable housing units approved by the Chicago Department of Housing intended for wards with a majority of white residents were blocked at the request of that ward’s alderperson.
Aldermanic prerogative aside, recent efforts to build more affordable housing around the mid-South Side have been slow moving.
The 2020 Woodlawn Housing Preservation Ordinance, passed to mitigate gentrification amid construction of the Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park, set aside 52 vacant lots in the neighborhood for affordable housing development. It also dedicated $4.5 million toward expanding housing programs in the neighborhood, among other provisions. But almost five years after passage, progress on these developments has been slow. Organizers from Southside Together, a community group advocating for protections against the displacement of residents, said that only one lot of the 52 has been developed.
Buckner, the chief sponsor of all three measures, said the bills originated from the housing plan created during his 2023 mayoral run. He said the bills, which are also sponsored by state Rep. Michelle Mussman (D-56th) and state Sen. Mike Simmons (D-7th), have been reconfigured for the legislature to try and “move them across the finish."
He also noted that more housing density will likely lead to population growth, which could help the city and state address its long-term financial issues.
“It has to be intentional,” he told the Herald. “We’ve got to be procedural, almost prescriptive to get there, and these bills step in the right direction to make that happen.”
Sen. Robert Peters (D-13th) said he also plans to sponsor the bill.
Buckner said he and his colleagues are still in the early stages of gathering broader support for the bill.
“I live in Chicago for a reason,” he said. “I believe in big cities with density and affordable housing.”