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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.”

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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