[remote or in person] Joint Committee: Finance; Housing & Real Estate

Chicago City Council

Housing

Finance

Politics

Wednesday, April 9, 2025
12:00 p.m. — 3:00 p.m. CDT

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121 N LaSalle St Chicago 60602 (Directions)

City Hall

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Reporting

Edited and summarized by the Chicago - IL Documenters Team

Live reporting by Samuel Lisec

With recent federal cuts and the current affordable housing crisis the city is proposing the Green Social Housing Ordinance as an alternative financing structure to provide permanently affordable mixed-income housing.

Samuel Lisec

Hi! I’ll be live-reporting today's Chicago City Council finance, housing & real estate joint committee meeting for #CHIdocumenters @CHIdocumenters, an organization created by the Chicago nonprofit newsroom City Bureau.

12:22 PM Apr 9, 2025 CDT

Samuel Lisec @smllisec 2/29

Chicago’s legislative finance committee—chaired by Pat Dowell of Ward 3—consists of 34 alderpersons who oversee matters like the city’s taxes, bonds, revenue orders and general funds for municipal services, capital projects and charity contributions.

Samuel Lisec @smllisec 3/29

Chicago’s legislative housing & real estate committee—chaired by Byron Sigcho-Lopez of Ward 25—consists of 19 alderpersons who oversee matters like the city’s housing agencies, neighborhood conservation, and real estate acquisitions/leases.

Samuel Lisec @smllisec 4/29

Today’s agenda states the two committees will vote on the Green Social Housing ordinance — i.e, whether to establish a “not-for-profit residential investment corporation” to create “permanently affordable, mixed-income and environmentally sustainable housing.”

Samuel Lisec @smllisec 5/29

The joint committee meeting started around 12 p.m. on April 9, 2025, in the downtown City Hall Chamber. There’s about 50 people in public attendance, excluding city staff. There's a good group wearing shirts from the community grassroots org ONE Northside.

Samuel Lisec @smllisec 6/29

A number of speakers during the opening public comment section voiced their support for the city’s Green Social Housing plan, including reps from the Illinois Green New Deal Coalition, Jewish Council on Urban Affairs, Metropolitan Planning Council and Elevated Chicago nonprofit.

Samuel Lisec @smllisec 7/29

A handful of reps from One Northside urged the council to advance the Green Social Housing (GSH) ordinance to City Council, lauding how it may improve tenant-conditions, create jobs, address climate change and set “a new standard for affordable housing and future for our city.”

Samuel Lisec @smllisec 8/29

Lissette Castañeda, commissioner of the city’s Department of Housing, requested the committee vote in favor of GSH as 51% of Chicago residents spend more than 30% of their income on housing and Chicago "cannot wait for a solution that may never come."

Samuel Lisec @smllisec 9/29

Now for nuts and bolts info on GSH itself: Chicago currently creates 800 low-income housing units a year, on average. GSH would produce an additional 400 units a year and ultimately 7,900 new mixed-income housing units over the next 30 years, a city presentation said.

Samuel Lisec @smllisec 10/29

What do we mean by mixed-income housing units? The GSH ordinance would create 75-200 housing units per development, with 70% of units at market rate for tenants and 30% of units designated as affordable for tenatns at up to 80% of the area median income.

Samuel Lisec @smllisec 11/29

About $135 million was set aside for the GSH “revolving loan fund” approximately one year ago out of a 1.25 billion housing bond sourced from the city’s now sunsetting TIF fund. Note: Chicago has a shortage of ~119k affordable housing units.

Samuel Lisec @smllisec 12/29

How would Chicago pay for the construction of GSH developments? The city (acting as the developer) would pony 5-10% of the equity, then 20-25% would be covered from a residential investment fund and the remaining 70% would be covered by “low-cost debt” a city presenter said.

Samuel Lisec @smllisec 13/29

The city would then utilize a $3.5 million Housing and Economic Development Bond to cover the startup-costs of running GSH developments from 2025-2029. But that bond would not be used forever as the GSH project is projected to be self-sufficient by 2030.

Samuel Lisec @smllisec 14/29

The chair of a housing committee from Montgomery County in Maryland attested that a similar mixed-income residential program they launched there has generated a $2 billion-investment from a $54 million investment and is on track to generate 6,000 new homes every 20 years.

Samuel Lisec @smllisec 15/29

Who will run GSH units? If city council approves the ordinance, Chicago will establish a non-profit Residential Investment Corporation (RIC) that will be an independent legal entity from the city. However, its board will be governed by five staff members from the mayor’s office.

Samuel Lisec @smllisec 16/29

The RIC board will also have one GSH resident and include 5-7 professionals—people with expertise in real estate, finance, environmental sustainability, etc—appointed by city council. These appointees will have staggered 5-year terms.

Samuel Lisec @smllisec 17/29

More on the developments: All affordable units will be made to be accessible and 10% will maintain a priority lease for veterans. Every development (described by a committee member as investments, not a subsidies) will be brought before city council before approval.

Samuel Lisec @smllisec 18/29

The city will fund GSH developments with no federal financing. Castañeda said it will cost approximately $400-500k to build each housing unit, but the city will also acquire some buildings to convert them into GSH housing in some wards.

Samuel Lisec @smllisec 19/29

Addressing the committee, one alderman said he’d like to vote for GSH but “it seems the homework is incomplete”—he’s concerned that it seems unclear whether the RIC would be subject to the Open Meetings Act and the high estimated salaries of its 11 employees.

Samuel Lisec @smllisec 20/29

To be clear on how GSH is unique: instead of the city issuing grants/tax credits to private developers to construct housing deemed affordable for 15-30 years, Chicago would be creating housing units it owns (via the RIC) and that permanently contain affordable units.

Samuel Lisec @smllisec 21/29

Of the 34 applications the city recently got for Low-Income Housing Tax Credit projects, only 11 got funded, Castañeda said. So GSH would give the city “another tool in the toolbox” and mean issuing “revolving” loans for shorter durations to use money for more projects.

Samuel Lisec @smllisec 22/29

Another alderman said he supports GSH in that “we have the direct answer to the direct question that the private market is asking for:” moving capital into Chicago. But he added that alderpeople haven’t had many opportunities to learn specifics about the ordinance’s details.

Samuel Lisec @smllisec 23/29

Three alderpersons echoed concern about the RIC’s oversight. If approved, the GSH will establish an independent body and therefore the council only has one shot to draft the RIC’s by-laws correctly so it doesn’t then deviate from the city’s mission.

Samuel Lisec @smllisec 24/29

One alderman dislikes how the majority of the RIC’s board will be selected by the mayor. Another noted no other city bodies have 5-year board terms; he thinks RIC board members should have 2-3 year terms to prevent “entrenched interest.” Both recommended punting today’s GSH vote.

Samuel Lisec @smllisec 25/29

Note: GSH developments will also have "equitable" tenant councils. A 10-unit building, for example, would have five tenants on its council from its market-rate units and five tenants from its affordable units, despite each building having 70% market rate/30% affordable units.

Samuel Lisec @smllisec 26/29

An alderperson reiterated how questions about the current GSH ordinance are valid, but she hopes the council votes yes because she fears Chicago will fall behind if it doesn’t invest in housing. Castañeda said the city has other housing initiatives, but none with this scope.

Samuel Lisec @smllisec 27/29

What happens if the council wants to dissolve the independent RIC governing GSH developments? The mayor of Chicago will have the authority to remove those civilian RIC board members (for-cause) who were not appointed to the board from the mayor’s office already.

Samuel Lisec @smllisec 28/29

All in all, this meeting consisted of lots of nitty gritty information about the GSH ordinance and concerns (as well as support) from alderpeople, but no vote today on whether to send the ordinance to Chicago City Council. The joint committee recessed until Monday.

Samuel Lisec @smllisec 29/29

Meeting officially adjourned at 4:15 p.m. This concludes the April 9 joint meeting between Chicago City Council’s Finance and Housing committees. The next meeting is scheduled for 12:30 p.m. on April 14, 2025. For more public meeting coverage, check out . documenters.org

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By Rachel Birkhahn-Rommelfanger ⋅ April 9th, 2025

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Chicago City Council

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The Chicago City Council is the legislative branch of the government of the City of Chicago and consists of the Mayor and Aldermen elected from each of the City’s fifty wards. Source

If you attend a meeting in person, be prepared to go through a security checkpoint and show photo ID.

Meetings are also livestreamed at https://www.chicityclerk.com/.

At this link, scroll down to “Meeting Notices.” Look for “Watch now” and click on the link with the meeting title to go to a livestream page. If you don’t see a link for the meeting, you may be early or the meeting may be starting late. Wait a few moments and try refreshing your Internet tab.

Recordings of past City Council meetings may be found here: https://vimeo.com/user100351763/videos/sort:date.

See also: “What to Expect at a Meeting of Chicago’s City Council” via the Better Government Association.