(WTTW News)
New rules designed to prevent the displacement of longtime residents by preserving affordable housing will soon be in place in parts of Hermosa, Logan Square, Avondale, West Town and Humboldt Park, the culmination of a yearslong fight against gentrification.
The Chicago City Council voted 44-3 to approve what supporters dubbed the Northwest Side Housing Preservation Ordinance, which expands two pilot programs that began in 2021 and makes them a permanent part of the city code.
In the areas covered by the ordinance, tenants in apartment buildings with as many as four units that are put up for sale will get the first opportunity to buy the building from their former landlord.
In addition, property owners who want to demolish apartment buildings with as many as four units would have to pay an additional fee of at least $20,000 per unit and as much as $60,000 per building, according to the new law. Those funds would be earmarked for the Chicago Housing Trust and the Here To Stay Land Trust, which builds and preserves affordable housing.
Rules would stop apartment buildings from being replaced with single-family homes on blocks with a majority of multiunit buildings, and property owners who wanted to build two-flats in areas where only single-family homes are now permitted would not need special permission from the city.
Ald. Carlos Ramirez Rosa (35th Ward) said that will stop many of the two-, three- and four-flats that make up much of the Northwest Side’s supply of affordable housing from being converted into “luxurious” single-family homes that few Latino Chicagoans can afford.
The Northwest Side, home to a majority of Latino Chicagoans, recorded the highest rate of gentrification and displacement of longtime families in the past decade in Chicago, according to the Institute for Housing Studies at DePaul University.
Ald. Jessie Fuentes (26th Ward) said many longtime residents of Humboldt Park are facing the “real threat of gentrification and displacement.”
“The No. 1 concern that I hear every day in my office: ‘I can’t afford to live here anymore. I just got my tax assessment,’” Fuentes said. “‘I’m done. I have to sell because I’ve been priced out.’ [This happens] when you deconvert three-flats, two-flats, four-flats.”
Alds. Brian Hopkins (2nd Ward), Bill Conway (43rd Ward) and Bennett Lawson (44th Ward) voted against the measure. All three represent wealthy North Side wards that have long been home to a majority of White Chicagoans.
Conway said the measure would exacerbate the shortage of affordable housing in Chicago by making it more expensive to build new housing in desirable neighborhoods in Chicago.
However, Ramirez Rosa said city data shows that tests of the policy in Pilsen and near the 606 Trail not only stopped some apartment buildings with fewer than four units from being demolished but generated funds to build new affordable housing.
The pilot program in Logan Square, Humboldt Park and Pilsen charged developers a $15,000 fee for tearing down detached homes, townhouses and two-flats. Those who wanted to build apartment buildings were charged a $5,000-per-unit fee.
Chicago lost more than 12,000 homes in two- to four-unit buildings between 2013 and 2022, according to city data. Two- and four-flats make up more than a third of the city’s housing stock, and make up a significant chunk of the city’s unsubsidized affordable housing, officials said.
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
