Mayor-Backed 'Green Social Housing' Ordinance Stalls In Council (2025)

CITY HALL — One of Mayor Brandon Johnson’s top 2025 legislative priorities stalled Wednesday as the proposed “green social housing” ordinance failed to advance to a full City Council vote.

The ordinance, which would create a city-run nonprofit to spur the development of environmentally friendly affordable housing units across the city, went before a joint meeting of the City Council’s finance and housing committees for a third time over the past week but did not survive an effort to hold it back Wednesday.

“I’m not asking for six months. I’m asking for a few more weeks, so that we make sure that we fully cook this chicken dinner that we want to serve, and not get anybody sick,” said Ald. Nicole Lee (11th), who made the motion to keep the legislation in committee.

Since an initial committee hearing last Wednesday, alderpeople have raised concerns about the governance structure and ethics requirements of the nonprofit, among other issues. Organized labor also pushed back against the ordinance.

The city’s Department of Housing and Law Department then made changes to the legislation — including codifying some ethics and oversight requirements as well as adding a labor peace agreement — but they weren’t enough to fend off the motion to hold the legislation from moving forward Wednesday, which was approved by a 19-17 vote.

That means the ordinance did not advance to the full City Council, although it could come back for consideration at a later date.

Funds to launch the green social housing program have already been approved by the City Council as part of a housing and economic bond deal passed last year. The agreement “established a revolving loan fund of $135 million to be used for low-cost construction period loans for green social housing,” according to a city press release last month.

The ordinance would allow developers to acquire construction financing for projects directly through the city-run nonprofit instead of private lenders, allowing them access to lower borrowing rates. The nonprofit would also be empowered to acquire existing buildings.

Each project would have at least 30 percent of its units earmarked as affordable, higher than rates in the city’s current Affordable Requirements Ordinance.

The nonprofit set up by the city would form “joint ventures” with private developers to back each project, and the city would retain a majority ownership stake. Developments could range from 75 units to more than 200, with rent payments going back to the city to fund future projects, according to a presentation given to alderpeople last week.

Unlike existing affordability requirements in new developments, affordable units in green social housing projects would never expire, Jung Yoon, director of policy for the Mayor’s Office, told alderpeople.

“Most of our other affordable housing tools have time expirations to them, whether 15 or 30 years, and then those units convert to market rates, risking displacing the current tenants there,” Yoon said last week. “Under this model, these units will be permanently affordable.”

In 2021, Chicago had a more than 119,000-unit gap between the existing rental housing stock and demand for affordable homes, according to a DePaul University study.

The city has proposed a range of ideas to boost affordable housing production, including continuing a Lightfoot-era program to convert Downtown office buildings into residential properties and encouraging private developers to build homes on vacant city-owned lots.

The green social housing ordinance comes as federal funding for affordable housing development — such as the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program— could be in flux due to cuts and uncertainty in Washington, housing advocates and city leaders said.

“This will give us financial independence so that we can produce housing with local dollars that does not rely on state or federal resources,” Yoon said.

Developments proposed under the program would each be required to earn full City Council approval. Projects would also have to follow the Department of Planning and Development’s sustainable development policy.

Numerous alderpeople’s concerns over the substance of the ordinance from last week carried over to Wednesday.

Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd) led the charge against the ordinance, repeatedly urging the Johnson administration to take more time to refine its details before bringing it to a final vote.

“I’d appreciate the Law Department to wrap some more bumper guards into this ordinance so that we all have some faith that the board that is seated isn’t going to go adopt a bunch of bylaws that run contrary to the assumptions we made in approving this thing,” Reilly said Wednesday. “I think this could be a great tool for Chicago, but we need to get it right.”

The Mayor’s Office and Department of Housing tried to alleviate some of those issues on Monday by adding nonprofit bylaws to the ordinance, shortening board member terms and specifying that the nonprofit would be subject to the Open Meetings Act, the Freedom of Information Act and city ethics requirements.

The joint committees recessed again to Wednesday morning, when administration officials said they had added further stipulations to the legislation regarding conflicts of interest, the labor peace agreement, annual audits and requiring cooperation with the city’s Office of the Inspector General.

Coming forward from the council gallery to speak during Wednesday’s hearing, Inspector General Deborah Witzburg acknowledged that “important changes” had been made that would allow her office to investigate potential misconduct issues at the nonprofit, but questions remained about how the city’s ethics ordinance would apply to its employees.

Alderpeople then held a voice vote on holding the measure, which narrowly passed.

Ahead of that vote, Ald. Leni Manaa-Hoppenworth (48th), one of the green social housing ordinance’s most vocal advocates, urged her colleagues to approve the measure so that communities like Edgewater, which she represents, could take advantage of new housing options.

“We have to move forward to help our housing crisis. Now. We can’t wait,” she said. “We have tools in our toolbox, it’s not enough. We have to strengthen what we have but we also have to add to it. And this is a new way to unlock an abundance of housing. It’s what we want. It’s what we need.”

Mayoral aide Kennedy Bartley said she expects negotiations over the ordinance to continue for the next week, with a possible final vote coming later this spring.

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