Chicago’s rental market is about to get a new rulebook, and multifamily owners are running the numbers on what it could cost them. Two competing pieces of legislation are now sitting in front of the City Council, both aimed at tenants who are struggling with rent, but landlords say either version could cut directly into the net operating income, or NOI, that determines what an apartment building is worth.
Mayor Brandon Johnson introduced the Protecting Renters Ordinance, known as PRO, to the Council’s Committee on Housing and Real Estate on June 29. It’s the first major rewrite of the city’s Residential Landlord and Tenant Ordinance since the 1980s, and it touches nearly every line item a landlord budgets for: security deposits, move-in charges, eviction procedure, and a new citywide registry of rental units. About 54% of Chicago households, or roughly 622,000 of them, rent rather than own, according to the mayor’s office, and more than 40% of those renters are considered cost-burdened, spending over 30% of their income on housing.
Debate never made it to a full Council vote before a rival bloc stepped in. On July 16, a coalition of more than 20 aldermen — many of whom previously helped block Johnson’s budget proposal — introduced a competing measure called the Fair and Accountable Illinois Rental Ordinance, or FAIR. Led by Ald. Gilbert Villegas, the group drafted its version with backing from a business-aligned political action committee and without input from tenant organizations, according to reporting from WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times…