Evanston’s City Council agreed on the need to better enforce its rental housing laws Monday night while disagreeing on whether new measures are actually needed, ultimately voting unanimously to advance new fines for offending landlords to a final vote next month.
Councilmember Shawn Iles (3rd Ward) spearheaded the proposal, which would tweak the Residential Landlord Tenant Ordinance (RLTO) by allowing fines of $100 to $1,000 against landlords for each time they break the law, on a per-unit and in some cases per-day basis. The proposal follows the stalling of negotiations between unionized tenants in southeast Evanston and private equity landlord Quadrel Realty Group, and several union representatives spoke during public comment about Quadrel’s recent RLTO violations like overpriced utilities and short-notice deadlines on lease offers.
Iles sought unanimous council support to adopt the fines on the same night they were introduced, later citing the deadlines Quadrel has put some tenants on to accept the company’s lease offers as-is, despite the union being in negotiations…