As Tribune journalist Lizzie Kane reported in June, Chicago is facing a housing crisis, and while many point to market forces, the real culprit is a self-inflicted wound: an overbearing bureaucracy and a political culture that consistently obstructs new residential development. Many of our elected officials publicly acknowledge our dire need for more housing and even pass ordinances to incentivize developments. But then they take actions that only exacerbate the problem in practice, resulting in fewer homes, higher prices and a city that is becoming increasingly unaffordable for the working class.
This isn’t just a matter of “not in my backyard,” or NIMBY, sentiment; it’s systemic dysfunction.
The struggle plays out repeatedly across Chicago. Take a recent proposal in Pilsen for a 16-unit building; seven units would be affordable and/or Americans with Disabilities Act accessible. The project embodies everything the city claims it wants: dense, transit-oriented development with on-site affordable housing. The design features a central courtyard with private outdoor space for every unit. The team behind it reflects the neighborhood itself — a Latino architect, a Latino husband-and-wife general contractor, and a developer who lives in Pilsen, sends his children to the local schools and volunteers at a community martial arts program.
Despite this, some residents voiced predictable grievances about parking and “community character” at a meeting this month. Others raised more legitimate concerns about affordability, rising rents and property taxes — concerns that could be alleviated by increasing our housing supply. Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez, 25th, chair of the City Council’s housing committee, sat silently at the back of the room; he didn’t acknowledge that rejecting this project would mean fewer affordable units, not more. He also didn’t mention that the alternative was an eight-unit luxury condo building with zero affordable units and no community input. Instead, Sigcho-Lopez’s only comment came at the end of the meeting and demonstrated his lack of leadership on the issue: If the community opposed the project, so would he.
This story isn’t unique to Pilsen; it’s playing out across our city and specifically in wards where the aldermen claim to be staunch supporters of affordable housing. Aldermen Maria Hadden, 49th, and Gilbert Villegas, 36th, recently wrote an op-ed about the need for more housing, and yet, their actions are contradictory. In Rogers Park, Hadden blocked a 52-unit building with 11 affordable units. The reason? Neighbors complained the six-story building was too dense, but a five-story building is directly across the street. The developer withdrew the application and will now build luxury condos with no affordable units. Similarly, in Villegas’s ward, about 30 people showed up to a meeting and blocked a 57-unit building with 11 affordable units because of demands for more parking. The proposed building is on a transit-serviced thoroughfare, exactly the kind of development promoted by the Connected Communities Ordinance.
There are several dozen other examples across our city of missed development opportunities, and every blocked and stalled project means lost jobs, lost tax revenue and families that are priced out.
These examples highlight a critical flaw in Chicago’s approach to housing. The city’s own policies, such as the Affordable Requirements Ordinance, which mandates that developers include affordable units, are grossly limited by aldermanic control over zoning. Developers are mandated to meet affordability requirements, but their projects are then stymied by the very same officials who set the rules. This contradictory approach forces builders to abandon larger, more inclusive projects in favor of smaller, luxury developments that require no zoning changes, bypass community review and often provide zero affordable homes.
Mayor Brandon Johnson has publicly acknowledged the need to build more housing. He claims that he’s creating “the safest, most affordable big city in America,” but his administration and his closest allies seem to be working against those stated goals. Last summer, the mayor announced his “Cut the Tape” initiative to boost housing construction. Among the recommendations listed: streamlining the design and construction requirements. A few days later, then-Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa passed a “special character zoning overlay” for a corridor on Milwaukee Avenue for developers to follow specific design guidelines.
While our housing shortage didn’t start overnight, today’s elected officials are making it only worse. Instead of bringing solutions, they continue to pass ordinances that cause delays, increase costs and deliver little to no real benefit. Instead of streamlining the development process, they create additional hurdles. Instead of working alongside developers, they publicly vilify them for political gain. The results are clear: Chicago’s housing supply crisis is a direct product of the City Council’s failure to acknowledge that building more housing creates jobs and increases our tax base to pay for our schools, parks and ever-increasing city debt.
No one disputes that gentrification is real, but numerous studies confirm that building more homes alleviates overall housing costs in all communities. Johnson and Chicago aldermen cannot claim to be advocates for working families while actively working against them. Chicago doesn’t need aldermanic stump speeches and op-eds that preach the gospel of equality and affordability while our leaders simultaneously are obstructionist. We need elected officials to work with — not against — the development community.
It’s time for aldermen to have honest conversations with their constituents that the world will not collapse if we welcome more neighbors into our communities and that yes, Chicago will always prioritize housing people over housing cars. Failing to do so undermines any faith that Johnson’s vision of “the safest, most affordable big city in America” is more than a slogan.
Unless Chicago changes course, we will continue to be a city that, by design, builds only for the wealthy, leaving working families behind.
Miguel Chacon is a licensed Illinois real estate broker at Compass, a local housing provider, chair of the Latino Real Estate Investors Council and a board member of the Neighborhood Building Owners Alliance.
Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.