When Lori Lightfoot was sworn in as mayor, her first executive order aimed to wipe out the impact of aldermanic privilege on the way city government functions.
But privilege won out, as it so often does, and the City Council practice of allowing local aldermen to veto city actions in their wards — zoning and permitting changes in particular — remains almost wholly intact.
Privilege raised its stubborn head again last month.
A move to allow more accessory dwelling units in Chicago, in part to increase affordable housing citywide, seemed headed to passage at the July council meeting. But no — a deference to aldermanic privilege and a neatly executed parliamentary maneuver delayed a vote.
Thanks to pushback from self-identified “Bungalow Belt” aldermen, a yearslong push to allow “granny flats,” coach houses and basement apartments throughout the city will need to wait until September. The proposal introduced by Ald. Bennett Lawson, 44th, was backed by Mayor Brandon Johnson, but the power of the mayor’s office isn’t what it once was when this particular mayor squares off against an increasingly independent-minded City Council.
The effort to address the city’s severe housing shortage — at least 150,000 units are needed, probably more — will have to wait. Homeowners who might have earned extra income will have to wait. Apartment dwellers seeking freshly constructed shelter, possibly in neighborhoods they might normally not be able to afford, will have to wait.
Many aldermen claim the power of their privilege is their best bet for protecting their wards from unwelcome changes in city policy. They know what’s best for their wards, they say. Besides, voters hold them responsible for everything that happens there. They need the veto power.
The arguments may seem sensible at first blush. But the truths about aldermanic privilege, sometimes called aldermanic prerogative, should be enough to make an honest alderman blush.
Aldermanic privilege is well known as a contributor to Chicago’s culture of corruption. For example, aldermanic privilege lent credibility to then-Ald. Ed Burke’s threat to block a Burger King construction project in his ward if the restaurant’s owners refused to hire Burke’s law firm and make a campaign donation. The extortion attempt helped put Burke in federal prison.
A lesser-known attribute of aldermanic privilege is the way it perpetuates racial and economic inequities in Chicago.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development said as much in 2023 after investigating a complaint from Chicago fair housing groups that aldermanic privilege perpetuates racial segregation in housing.
“By limiting the availability of affordable housing, the local veto disproportionately harms Black and Hispanic households,” HUD found.
In addition to enabling corruption and exacerbating discrimination, aldermanic privilege also can simply enable bad policy — or block the adoption of good law. That’s what is happening with the push to prevent expansion of accessory dwelling units across the city.
The move to expand the use of granny flats and other ADUs is long overdue. It has been in the works since before 2021, when a pilot project launched in five test zones began — two each on the North and South sides and one on the West Side.
Until then, ADUs were banned citywide, due to 1957 vintage zoning codes designed to reduce the risk of overpopulation. Redlining and blockbusting were the go-to tactics of race-based housing discrimination back then, and academic studies have shown the ban on granny flats was informed by segregationist intent, too.
Overpopulation is no longer a concern. Chicago has lost around 800,000 residents since 1957. But rising economic inequity and increased gentrification are making it ever more difficult for many people to find decent, affordable housing. And the lack of affordable housing exacerbates racial and economic segregation, too.
The delay by the City Council is all the more confounding because early results from the city’s five pilot zones show some promise, but also some lessons that there is more work to do to bring more affordable, accessible housing to neighborhoods across the city.
According to a report by my organization, the Better Government Association’s Illinois Answers Project, around 300 units have popped up in the zones, but 90% of them are on the North Side. This means the West and South Side zones that could benefit substantially from new housing have not yet seen much impact.
A restriction limiting ADU to owner-occupied properties, added only in the West and South Side zones, may have contributed to the limited adoption in those neighborhoods.
Most of the new ADUs are in remodeled basements, where both construction costs and occupancy numbers tend to be smaller, not the coach houses that feed concerns among some opponents about population and building density, Illinois Answers reporter Alex Nitkin found.
The pilot test, alongside lessons from other cities with more open ADU policies, have informed some of the compromises adopted in order to get the proposal out of the City Council’s zoning committee last month. Limiting permits to owner-occupied buildings throughout the city is one of them. So are limits on the number of permits per block, based on zoning. The proposal also limits the use of granny flats for short-term rentals.
Other cities have provided further protections that could be worth considering: requiring off-street parking, for example. But an Urban Land Institute study published just before Lightfoot launched the pilot-zone test warned that some such measures can impede the growth and socioeconomic benefit of ADUs.
The City Council likely will take up the measure in September. Meanwhile, state Rep. Kam Buckner, D-Chicago, has drafted a bill for the state legislature that would ban prohibitions on ADUs and add measures designed to encourage their construction.
The benefits of ADUs and the momentum toward removal of the ban are powerful enough that aldermanic privilege must not be allowed to stand in their way.
A city ordinance drafted with appropriate safeguards could help address the city’s housing shortage at minimum cost to our cash-strapped city.
In other words, ADUs are an idea whose time has come — and the delays caused by the claims of aldermanic privilege are yet another reason why the end to that outdated tradition is long past due.
David Greising is president and CEO of the Better Government Association.
Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.
