How much affordable housing is too much?

August 2, 2019                                      By: Greg Hinz

It's a tough question to answer, but it's one City Hall must get right as it weighs proposals that could either make Chicago more livable for many or stifle residential construction altogether.

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Nervous Chicago business folks won a modicum of reassurance last month when a compromise work-notice ordinance finally was crafted. The deal admittedly had some aspects of a shotgun marriage, but business groups pulled enough concessions out of Mayor Lori Lightfoot that they ended up signing off on the new law.

Now, a much bigger test of business's relationship with the new mayor has begun. At stake literally is the health of the city's entire residential market, both rental and homeowner-occupied.

My reference is to a series of pending proposals to expand the city's stock of affordable housing—or at least to prevent it from shrinking amid a central-area economic boom that's sparking a gentrification wave. Get it right and lower-income people will get new options to stay in town without having to starve their kids. Get it wrong and both new and renovated residential construction will dry up.....................Read More