Category: Housing

An 'Apartments for Rent' sign from a property management company on a brick building on W Pratt Blvd in Rogers Park, Chicago

How Chicago should regulate rental junk fees

October 9, 2026 / / 1 Comment

This post was co-written with Steffany Bahamon.

Chicago is going to regulate rental fees no matter which renter protection ordinance City Council passes. Both the mayor’s Protecting Renters Ordinance (PRO) and the alternative introduced by Ald. Gilbert Villegas (FAIR) write new fee rules, and both sit on top of the same new state law. The question isn’t whether Chicago should regulate junk fees; it’s how the list of allowed fees works, whether landlords have to show their costs, and what happens to move-in fees.

Abundant Housing Illinois (AHIL) supports PRO’s fee structure with two changes: let tenants choose between a security deposit and move-in/move-out fees (never both), and replace fixed dollar caps with a “reasonable documented cost” standard. This is the companion to last week’s post on what Chicago’s rental registry should collect and how to pay for it. (These memos are posted here because the AHIL website is presently being transferred to a new system.)

What state law already does

HB 3564, passed in May 2026, added fee rules to the Illinois Landlord and Tenant Act, effective January 1, 2027. Every non-optional fee has to be disclosed on the first page of the lease, application fees are capped at $50 (a landlord can bill a higher third-party screening cost only with a receipt, within 14 days), and landlords can’t rename a fee to get around the rules. Springfield deliberately left move-in fees and security deposits to local governments, which is where PRO and FAIR come in.

PRO and FAIR take opposite approaches

PRO says a tenant can be charged a security deposit, up to one month of prepaid rent, and a specific list of allowed fees. Everything else is out. FAIR does the reverse: it bans specific practices and permits the rest.

FAIRPRO
StructureBans listed practices, permits the restOnly listed fees are allowed (an “allow list”)
Application fee$50, with documented overage billable (state law)The lesser of the actual cost or $20
Move-in/move-out feesMove-in fee allowed if reasonably related to estimated costNot on the list, which means they’re banned
Security deposit cap1.5 months’ rent1 month’s rent
Proof of costFirst-page disclosure onlyItemized cost and documentation before charging
Routine maintenance (like repainting units, replacing worn fixtures, vacuuming)Barred only in pet chargesBarred from every fee
Utilities and RUBSNo markupNo markup building-wide, no billing-vendor fees, a written formula showing how utility bills are divided among apartments, 90 days’ notice of changes, bills on request

FAIR has a no-rename clause, but it only catches relabeling an existing fee, not inventing a new one. Under a “ban list” approach, a landlord who comes up with a fee nobody thought to ban gets to keep charging it.

An allow list is a typical policy

PRO’s approach isn’t radical. It’s similar to what many other places already do:

  • Seattle updated its rental fee rules in August 2026. A fee is legal only if city code or state law authorizes it, regardless of what it’s called. Seattle is stricter than PRO: no pet fees beyond a damage deposit, a flat $10 late fee, and no fees for paying by check or ACH.
  • Montgomery County, Maryland permits only an enumerated set of regulated fees.
  • Colorado bars fees above the landlord’s actual cost and requires a disclosed utility formula.

Utility billing rules

A ratio utility billing system (RUBS) splits a master-metered building’s utility bill across units by formula, usually based on apartment size and number of occupants (the assumption being that households of similar size use similar amounts of energy). Both ordinances keep RUBS legal. FAIR has one rule: no markups. PRO puts guardrails around it:

  • No markup across the building. The total charged to all tenants can’t exceed what the utilities billed.
  • No billing-vendor fees. Tenants can’t be charged costs from third-party vendors, aggregators, or resellers.
  • No switching mid-lease. A landlord can’t move a tenant from landlord-paid to tenant-paid utilities, or from fixed-rate to variable-rate, during the lease.
  • 90 days’ notice before any such change.
  • A written formula detailed enough for tenants to calculate their own share, keyed to the Tenant Utility Payment Disclosure Act.
  • Bills on request for any period a tenant is charged for.

That’s Seattle’s current position, and close to Oregon’s statewide rules. We support PRO’s approach to utilities as written.

Change 1: a deposit or move-in/move-out fees, never both

A common problem with junk fees is stacking: a move-in fee, an application charge, and a monthly “bundle” fee piled on top of base rent before anyone has moved in. PRO fixes this by banning move-in and move-out fees outright and capping deposits at one month’s rent.

We’d rather let tenants choose one track or the other. The landlord prices both up front, and the renter picks at signing:

  • Deposit track: a refundable security deposit of up to one and a half months’ rent (FAIR’s level), held and returned under the city’s Residential Landlord and Tenant Ordinance.
  • Fee track: move-in and/or move-out fees at reasonable documented cost, with a combined total of no more than one and a half months’ rent, and no deposit.

A move-in fee at cost is usually a few hundred dollars, not a month’s rent, so the fee track is a cheaper way into an apartment. The either/or rule ends stacking and should mean fewer fights over deposits.

Seattle caps the security deposit and nonrefundable move-in fees together at one month’s rent but leaves the mix up to the landlord. We’d hand that choice to the tenant. Cook County’s Residential Tenant Landlord Ordinance bars disguising a deposit as a nonrefundable fee, and we’d keep that rule: a fee that works like a deposit gets treated like one. A renter who wants money back picks the deposit; one who’s short on cash picks the fee. Capping the fee at documented cost keeps the cheaper option honest.

Change 2: reasonable documented cost, not fixed dollar caps

A cost standard is preferable because it’s based on real costs, while fixed dollar caps written into the ordinance will go stale. PRO already requires an itemized description, the cost, and supporting documentation before any fee is charged. A fee backed by receipts is easier to audit than a flat number nobody has to justify.

What we mean by “reasonable cost”:

  • What the landlord actually paid; for turnover fees, a documented estimate from recent turnovers of comparable units
  • No routine maintenance, overhead, or profit
  • Itemized and documented before it’s charged

For application fees, we’d use the state framework from HB 3564 instead of PRO’s $20 cap. That gives Illinois one application fee standard instead of two. Evanston and Cook County already use cost-based standards for move-in fees.

The fee schedule AHIL supports

Before move-in, a landlord may collect only:

  • First month’s rent
  • An application fee at actual documented cost, under the state framework (up to the $50 cap in state law, plus documented third-party overage, and free when the tenant provides a reusable screening report)
  • The tenant’s choice of one of the following (the landlord offers both, with prices in writing before signing):
    • a refundable security deposit of up to one and a half months’ rent, or
    • move-in and/or move-out fees at reasonable documented cost, with a combined total of no more than one and a half months’ rent

During the tenancy, only:

  • A pet fee, one-time or recurring but not both, at reasonable cost
  • Non-recurring costs the tenant triggers (key copies, bounced payments), at actual cost
  • Optional services the tenant opts into in writing, at cost
  • Utility charges under PRO’s rules: no markup building-wide, no billing-vendor fees, a written allocation formula, 90 days’ notice of changes, and bills on request

Rules for every fee:

  • Allow list: anything not on this list is prohibited
  • Itemized description, cost, and documentation before charging
  • No routine maintenance in any fee
  • Every non-optional fee on page one of the lease (state law)
  • A fee that works like a deposit is treated as a deposit (meaning it’s returned after the tenant moves out and leaves the unit in the condition previously agreed upon)
  • Charging a prohibited fee draws a penalty from the new rental housing bureau of 1.5 times the amount charged

Who else supports junk fee reform

Junk fee reform has been backed by other YIMBY groups, research organizations, and economists:

  • Open New York backed the FARE Act, New York City’s ban on making tenants pay broker fees for brokers the landlord hired. Executive Director Annemarie Gray said the law will protect renters from thousands of dollars in broker fees they never asked for.
  • Urban Institute recommends upfront disclosure of all fees, banning catch-all cost transfer clauses, banning mandatory services, and allowing evictions only for unpaid rent. Seattle’s council sponsor cited this research when the city unanimously passed its rental junk fee ban in August 2026.
  • Center for American Progress proposes capping rental application fees, noting that landlords typically pay screening companies less than they charge renters, and that portable screening report laws often produce limited savings in practice.
  • Neale Mahoney, a Stanford economist, worked on national junk fee policy in the Biden administration and flew to Seattle to testify for the city’s rental fee ban.

City Council should pass fee rules that list what a landlord can charge, require receipts for every charge, and let renters choose between a deposit and move-in fees instead of paying both. PRO gets most of the way there; with these two changes, Chicago would have one of the clearest fee standards in the country.

courtyard apartment building

What Chicago’s rental registry should collect, and how to pay for it

October 5, 2026 / / 2 Comments

This post was co-written with Steffany Bahamon.

Chicago is going to get a rental registry no matter which renter protection ordinance City Council passes. Both the mayor’s ordinance (PRO) and the alternative introduced by Ald. Gilbert Villegas (FAIR) create one. The question now isn’t whether Chicago should have a registry; it’s what data the registry collects and how we pay for it. (Abundant Housing Illinois has endorsed PRO with some changes; this post goes deeper on the registry, and a companion post covers how Chicago should regulate rental junk fees.)

I’ve been making the case for a rental registry since 2023, when I proposed a kludge using Cook County databases because Chicago Cityscape only has unit-count data for about 37 percent of apartment buildings. 17 of the 75 largest U.S. cities already run one, and the National League of Cities – where Alderman Villegas sits on the board – recommends them as a local policy.

Rental data is notoriously hard to get right, and as YIMBYs we want the best data possible.

FAIR’s registry collects only four things

Under FAIR, a registration “shall include only”:

  1. the street address of the building
  2. owner or agent contact
  3. property manager contact
  4. who receives repair requests

That’s not enough to do much with.

PRO collects much more: the address and PIN (the property index number Cook County uses to identify each parcel), unit count, floor count, unit numbers, bedrooms, whether each unit is occupied or vacant, and the monthly rent charged for each unit. It also collects the full ownership structure: every member or officer holding 20 percent or more (or the top five if nobody hits 20 percent), parent companies, subsidiaries, the trust name and whoever can direct the trustee, and a local contact in Chicago if the owner isn’t here. No P.O. boxes allowed.

PRO leaves it to the Commissioner of Housing to decide, by rule, which registry information is publicly accessible and which is restricted (§5-12-175(b)(1)). In our view it’s not essential to publish owners’ addresses to the public but City Hall should have it.

A major reason to have a registry is that LLCs shield problem landlords and the city and tenants can’t figure out who owns what. FAIR’s registry cannot pierce a single LLC. You’d get a street address and a registered agent, which is what you can already get from the Illinois Secretary of State.

Here’s what that looks like in practice. In September a Cook County judge halted the receivership sale of the Crestwood Apartments, a 57-unit building for low-income seniors at 525 N Austin Boulevard, after tenants linked the buyer to the building’s former operator, The Real Deal reported. That operator, Boruch “Barry” Drillman, pleaded guilty last year to a $165 million federal mortgage fraud conspiracy, and his company is the target of Fannie Mae’s foreclosure lawsuit over the building after it allegedly defaulted on a $5.1 million mortgage. The Chicago Housing Authority had suspended rent subsidies on 31 units over failed inspections and declared the property “uninhabitable.”

Crestwood isn’t a one-off. Brian Mykulyn and Elora Raymond wrote in Shelterforce that the share of rental units owned by non-individual investors rose from 17.3 percent in 2001 to 24.5 percent in 2015. In Memphis, the majority of the most blighted properties belong to LLCs, and in Milwaukee, LLC ownership correlates with housing disrepair. Their recommendation is the one I’m making here: local rental ordinances that require LLCs to disclose who’s behind them, like Minneapolis, which requires rental licensees to name “an associated natural person.”

PRO pays for itself; FAIR’s funding doesn’t exist on paper

PRO charges an annual registration fee of $20 per unit for buildings with 1–4 units, $40 per unit for 5–49 units, and $60 per unit for 50+ units. Chicago Housing Authority units, affordable units under a regulatory agreement, and owner-occupied one- to six-flats are exempt from the fees (but not from registering). That adds up to about $22 million a year, which funds the bureau that administers the registry (§2-44-200(b)(3)). About half of rental registries are funded this way, so it’s not ideal, but it’s normal.

FAIR has no fee provision at all. Its Office of Rental Housing would sit inside the Department of Buildings and is “subject to appropriation” in a department that housing advocates and the Johnson administration both say is already stretched thin.

Alderman Villegas has verbally described funding it through a foreclosure registry. That is not in the FAIR ordinance text. Steffany looked for a city that funds a rental registry with foreclosure registry fees and couldn’t find one anywhere in the United States. Foreclosure and rental registries coexist in plenty of Florida cities, but they’re funded separately, and foreclosure fees are usually dedicated narrowly by statute.

The closest thing is Columbus, Ohio, and even it doesn’t do exactly that. Columbus has a $250 biannual foreclosed property registration and still funded its April 2026 rental registry with a $15 per-unit fee. Columbus also tried to spend registry fees on affordable housing and was told by its own deputy city attorney that state law only lets registry fees pay for the registry.

Foreclosure revenue moves the wrong way

There’s a very good fiscal reason most rental registries aren’t funded this way. Foreclosure revenue is countercyclical and inconsistent: it’s a trickle in good years and spikes during recessions.

A registry for 500,000+ units, on the other hand, is a fixed, permanent cost: vendors, staff, and a public website. In a city where the budget fight is an annual bloodbath, funding data infrastructure with a revenue line that moves the wrong way is how you end up with an unmaintained or half-built database.

Chicago may not be able to fund the FAIR registry that way regardless. In FHFA v. City of Chicago (N.D. Ill. 2013), Judge Durkin held that the city’s vacant buildings ordinance was preempted as to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and called the $500 registration fee an impermissible tax on the federal government. Fannie and Freddie held about 258,000 Chicago loans at the time. The city settled in 2014 and agreed not to collect. We already litigated the foreclosure fee base and lost most of it.

Data the registry should capture

  • Owner identity, including the real people (natural persons) behind LLCs. The current records don’t show who actually owns the building. It allows early intervention (knowing who is behind a portfolio lets the city act before problems spread across many buildings).
  • Property manager and a local 24/7 emergency contact (this is the “responsible party” who will address tenant issues; ownership information is needed to know who’s responsible for the manager and emergency contact)
  • Building and dwelling characteristics
    • Unit count per building
    • Bedroom and bathroom count per unit
  • Existing data about the building from extant sources
    • Eviction records as they happen (this information would be supplied by a data sharing agreement between the city and the Cook County Circuit Court)
    • Inspection and violation history
  • Rental information
    • Rent for each occupied unit (the price on the lease)
    • Terms for each occupied unit
      • move-in month
      • whether the lease is month-to-month, annual, or some other period
      • which utilities are included
      • price of fixed-rate utilities
      • whether RUBS (ratio utility billing, which splits a master-metered building’s utility bill across units by formula) is used
      • whether a security deposit or move-in fee was used, and the price of such
  • Status of each unoccupied unit, as a count with a per-unit breakdown:
    • Leasable, meaning the owner is looking for a tenant
    • Held for a future tenant who won’t be charged rent
    • Held vacant for a planned renovation
    • Whether it’s listed online, and at what price
    • Whether a broker represents it
    • If it isn’t listed, the price the owner is trying to get

Who else supports rental registries

I’m not alone here. Rental registries have been endorsed by other YIMBY groups and research organizations:

City Council should pass a registry that can actually tell us who owns Chicago’s rental housing, what it rents for, and which units are sitting empty – and fund it with a revenue source that will still be there in year three. PRO’s registry comes much closer to that than FAIR’s.

Ald. Fuentes: “Additional dwelling units historically in the city of Chicago have been naturally occurring affordable units for our families”

July 27, 2025 / / 0 Comments

26th Ward Alderperson Jessie Fuentes responded to 9th Ward Alderperson Anthony Beal at the July 15, 2025, meeting of the Chicago Committee on Zoning, Landmarks, and Building Standards, and added her own perspective on why ADUs are important for families. The text of her statement is below.

The committee voted to approve the citywide ADUs ordinance but it was deferred and published the following day during the City Council meeting.

First and foremost, you know I have to correct the record. Every body of research and data will tell you the immigrants pay taxes and the city of Chicago and any other city that they live in. In fact, we won’t even, we won’t be able to build our city without immigrants.

Now for the reason that we’re here. ’cause it’s not about migrants, immigrants not paying taxes, it’s about housing. And we had a housing shortage well before migrants arrived to the city of Chicago. And it is because there is so much red tape around development, around adding units and around bringing affordability to our communities.

That’s not some sort of, like, tall tale story. It’s a reality that many of our communities experience whether you are representing Wrigleyville, whether you’re representing Hermosa, whether you’re representing Humboldt Park or any other community across the city of Chicago.

The reality is, is that there’s a lot of red tape that small landlords in particular have to jump through just to be able to provide units for our community. Additional dwelling units historically in the city of Chicago have been naturally occurring affordable units for our families.

Often when people are creating basements, attics, or whether that’s a coach house in the back of their yard, they’re doing so for relatives, for friends so that they could keep them close. Or for a neighbor that may not be able to afford a market rate unit in our community.

Landlords shouldn’t have to go through so many different loopholes or to be in favor with their alderperson to be able to add a unit for a family to live in. And so I’m okay with letting go some of control because I didn’t come to be an elected official to keep control of every problem in my ward.

I came to be a representative of the people and people in my community, in the 26th Ward, are telling me every single day that they can’t afford to live in my community because of the increase in rent, the astronomical increases that we see in property taxes.

The type of rapid gentrification that we are seeing in communities like mine is a form of violence. When you displace people the way families in my community have been displaced, you have to be able to look at the toolbox to say, what tools am I gonna add here so that I can preserve families in my community?

For me that means making sure we tack on fees for the demolition and deconversions, that tenants have the right of first refusal and that homeowners and building owners have the opportunity to add additional dwelling units if that’s what’s gonna keep people in place.

And so today I’ll be voting yes on this ordinance. Thank you, chairman. Thank you.

The transcript above was automatically generated by Vimeo AI and edited by me.

Aerial photo of the Humboldt Park neighborhood in Chicago

Guest post: Chicago has multiple crises that more housing could mitigate

June 23, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Chicago currently faces a dire financial crisis that could leave the city with a $1.2 billion budget deficit in 2026 and a potentially higher deficit in 2027. One way the city can attempt to chip away at this deficit is by expanding access to affordable and abundant residential housing across the city. This article by Joshua Chodor focuses on the communities impacted by Chicago’s shortage of affordable residential housing, why more home choices will be needed and the potential strategies that can create housing abundance.

In his 1999 book Homeland Earth, French philosopher and sociologist Edgar Morin developed a term that would encapsulate the interconnectivity and complexity of modern crises across the world. Spurred by growing fears of global warming, resource depletion and environmental destruction leading to novel diseases, Morin defined his concerns through the term “polycrisis“. 

As Morin projected, today’s modern polycrisis is defined by the convergence of climate change, international migration and humanitarian crises, the increasing rise of authoritarian governments and misinformation driving civil and social unrest globally. To call Chicago’s myriad issues a polycrisis may diminish the word’s more complex meaning. However, when identifying Chicago’s critical issues – a budget crisis, a housing crisis, a cost of living crisis and the political target that the current presidential administration has set on the city – polycrisis emerges as a valid description of the situation.

Chicago must follow a common sense agenda that creates an abundance of housing at all price points in order to alleviate these intertwined crises.

Chicago is only now seeing positive population growth after years of decline, but the stagnant pace of development has left residents with few affordable home choices within the communities they live and work. Monthly rents are reaching new highs and continued inflation contributes to a cost of living crisis impacting everyone. Rising rents with a minimal volume of new unit development not only inhibits those seeking to move into Chicago from elsewhere, but also may price existing residents out. This cycle could potentially displace long-time Chicagoans without mitigating the severe housing shortage that currently exists. 

To make Chicago a more affordable place to live for its current and future residents – and untangle this polycrisis – the city must be laser-focused on creating housing abundance. Building more housing is directly linked to the migration of new residents into the city, specifically from political migration, climate migration and international migration. 

1. Political Migration

As Republican-led states legislate against LGBTQ+ rights, attack marginalized communities and dismantle abortion and women’s healthcare access, at-risk groups and individuals will increasingly seek refuge in “blue” areas that offer them the rights and dignities that they deserve everywhere. Governor J.B. Pritzker has ensured that Illinois remains safe and welcoming to those communities unfairly targeted by an arbitrary and capricious war against anything considered “woke” – a catch-all pejorative used as an insult toward those seeking social justice. Chicago – and Illinois as a whole – must show it supports individuals of all backgrounds by expanding opportunities for new housing. In addition, as some state public health services are refuting science-backed advancements in healthcare such as the removal of fluoride from drinking water, Chicago is in a prime position to benefit from a potential influx of red state transplants for reasons related to their health and welfare. 

2. Climate Migration

After years of residential growth, sun belt states face glaring climate concerns related to extreme heat and water access. Climate change is worsening storms, floods and hurricanes, and the current presidential administration has all but asserted that it does not see this as an issue. With extreme weather and the dismantling of NOAA, FEMA and other protective agencies, many areas of the country will increasingly become unlivable – at least, for those who don’t have the means to move elsewhere. Natural disasters have become more intense, potentially jeopardizing residents’ access to clean drinking water, a situation which will drive migration out of the most threatened areas. The Great Lakes region will, in all expectation, grow in population as a direct and indirect result of unstable weather in other regions. Chicagoland will be a primary destination as one of the largest markets that can sustain a sizable population influx. Without additional housing, the climate-based migration of wealthier families and individuals could price out existing marginalized communities from their homes; Chicago must be ready for this increase of potential new residents.

3. International & Humanitarian Migration

When discussing the topic of immigration, the conversation inevitably focuses on the southern border and the law enforcement actions which target and demonize those attempting to legally migrate into the country. A clear example of this is in Texas, where razor wire has been installed on floating buoys to dissuade migration, an inhumane strategy that has led to an increase in drowning-related deaths. Some states actively dehumanize immigrants through legislation meant to instill fear in already vulnerable communities. The consequences of this crisis in Illinois magnify a noticeable difference between policies in Chicagoland compared to the rest of the state. While Chicago has strengthened its “sanctuary” protections over recent months, more than a dozen Illinois counties enacted “non-sanctuary” laws or regulations designed to antagonize immigrant communities. It is clear why international migrants, if given the opportunity, would go to a place that offers them more protection compared to the cruelty that other locations seem to enjoy inflicting. This problem will remain pervasive and, until states no longer enact dehumanizing and cruel immigration-related laws, the Chicagoland region must create more affordable and safe housing options for vulnerable immigrant communities.

Chicago must prioritize expanding its housing supply and residential development in the city and surrounding areas in order to not only mitigate existing financial concerns, but also proactively prepare for an influx of new residents. Policies, both implicit (aldermanic prerogative) and explicit (segregationist zoning codes) have created a set of individual yet interconnected crises that have stymied housing growth, worsening Chicago’s budget shortfall while maintaining racial and ethnic divisions through the denial of critical new affordable housing options. This uncertainty will continue to leave residents – both current and prospective – stuck with fewer affordable and viable housing options. 

Chicago must address its intertwined issues holistically, as its current piecemeal approach has severely hindered the city’s ability to be a desirable and affordable place to call home. In a future post, I will identify short- and long-term actions and suggest solutions toward alleviating Chicago’s housing shortage, such as expanding the city’s accessory dwelling units (ADU) ordinance, allowing 4-flats by right, removing parking mandates, and enacting a land value tax, among other ideas. 

Fortunately, a number of volunteer organizations are focusing on addressing Chicago’s housing shortage, such as Abundant Housing Illinois and Strong Towns Chicago. That these groups have grown drastically in size over the past year is a clear sign that city residents will no longer sit back and wait for City Hall to unravel the threads of Chicago’s polycrisis.  

Josh Chodor is a master’s student in the University of Illinois Chicago’s Urban Planning and Policy program as well as a member of Abundant Housing Illinois and Strong Towns Chicago.

photo of the interior of an ADU coach house in Lakeview built in 2023
Interior of Brian’s coach house

AARP Illinois talks to Brian and Steven about legalizing ADUs citywide and statewide

March 25, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Adam Ballard, the Associate State Director for AARP Illinois, the local chapter for AARP, interviewed Brian P. and I about accessory dwelling units. We discussed:

The conversation is 28 minutes long; if you haven’t dived into ADUs yet, this is a great video to help get you up to speed!

Bonus content: AARP is the largest organizational supporter of allowing accessory dwelling units in all communities because of how they expand the options for people to “age in place” (continue living in the same neighborhood when their housing needs change), earn additional income, or rent their big house to their adult children’s families. Explore AARP’s ADU resources.