CHICAGO URBAN DAILY
Mayor Johnson’s Renter Protection Plan Wins First Round — Fight Far From Over
CHICAGO (CHICAGO URBAN DAILY)— Mayor Brandon Johnson scored an early — and narrow — victory this week in the battle over Chicago’s renter protections, a fight that touches the lives of the city’s 600,000 renters.
The City Council’s Housing Committee, chaired by one of the mayor’s closest allies, voted 12-9 to approve Johnson’s revised Protecting Renters Ordinance. The vote came only after the mayor made a key concession: dropping the “just cause” provision that would have required landlords to make relocation payments to tenants evicted through no fault of their own. He had already exempted owner-occupied buildings of six units or fewer, and an earlier draft provision on unconscionable rent increases was stripped out.
The opposition isn’t backing down. Zoning Committee Chair Gilbert Villegas (36th) is pushing an alternative — the Fair and Accountable Rental Ordinance, or FAIR — favored by many of the same real estate interests that spent millions to defeat Johnson’s “Bring Chicago Home” referendum. “This is going to raise rents,” Villegas told the Chicago Sun-Times. The full City Council will now choose between the dueling ordinances, merge them, or keep talking.
Passage of either plan would mark the first major update to Chicago’s renter protections in more than four decades.
The same Council week saw Johnson introduce a 12-month moratorium on new data center construction — “open for business, but not for sale,” the mayor said — plus new safety standards for workers exposed to extreme heat and cold.
Stay tuned to Chicago Urban Daily for continuing coverage from City Hall.
Reported by Chicago Urban Daily News. Visit chicagourbandailynews.com for updates.
