Today, the Chicago City Council is considering two competing rental housing proposals, and the votes on these measures could have major repercussions for the city’s housing affordability crisis. The Council now needs to choose between the mayor’s dangerous Protecting Renters Ordinance (PRO) or the more pragmatic Fair and Accountable Illinois Rental (FAIR) Ordinance.

Even with recent amendments, PRO poses a greater threat to housing affordability and supply than FAIR. While both ordinances carry additional costs and requirements, PRO imposes more expansive mandates, greater legal exposure, and more bureaucracy on housing providers. Those measures have real costs that will drive rent prices up and worsen the housing shortage.

 

As a housing provider, the concern is not simply the cost of complying with more regulations. It’s the cumulative effect of fees, administrative requirements, legal exposure, property expenses, and instability. Over time, those costs affect decisions about whether to renovate a building, acquire a property, pursue a new development, or continue investing in Chicago at all. When the cost of operating housing increases, rents will rise.

Greater supply can help moderate pressure on rents, and that’s why FAIR is a better option than PRO. FAIR acknowledges the need for meaningful renter protections while avoiding some of the unnecessary costs and regulatory burdens contained in PRO. It is not a perfect solution and supporting it is not an endorsement of every provision. But considering the alternative, FAIR offers a more balanced path forward. 

Consider move-in fees. FAIR requires those fees to be reasonably related to a landlord’s estimated costs associated with a tenant moving into a unit. At the same time, FAIR acknowledges that Illinois just enacted HB 3564, which establishes statewide restrictions on application fees and disclosure of non-optional fees before a lease is signed. Rather than layering additional conflicting requirements on Chicago housing providers, the city should allow this recently negotiated statewide framework to take effect and provide consistency throughout Illinois. 

FAIR also takes a more measured approach to rental registration. Both FAIR and PRO address a rental registry, but FAIR avoids turning registration into another revenue-generating tax on rental housing. Under PRO, registration fees could reach as much as $60 per unit. Those costs add up to be a significant expense that ultimately puts additional pressure on housing costs. FAIR instead limits landlord registration fees to the reasonable costs of administering the program. A rental registry should promote compliance and accountability, not become a revenue source funded by housing providers and, ultimately, renters.

FAIR also creates a more targeted enforcement structure. Chicago already has city departments responsible for enforcing housing, building, health, and safety requirements. FAIR places the Office of Rental Housing Services within the Department of Buildings to administer the rental registry, provide voluntary mediation, and enforce portions of the Residential Landlord and Tenant Ordinance that carry fines. That approach provides a defined administrative structure without creating an unnecessarily expansive new bureaucracy or duplicating existing enforcement authority.

Most importantly, FAIR provides meaningful renter protections, including limits on security deposits, transparency around dynamic pricing, restrictions on pet and utility fees, protections against retaliation, and a voluntary mediation process for landlord-tenant disputes. These measures show that protecting renters and maintaining housing affordability do not have to be competing goals.

Chicago needs housing policies that protect renters while supporting the investment needed to provide more housing choices. Affordability comes from more homes, more investment, and more options, not more hurdles.

If Chicago is serious about closing its housing shortage, it cannot treat housing providers as adversaries. From small landlords to large multifamily operators, providers facing rising costs and regulatory burdens may delay projects, invest elsewhere, or leave the rental market altogether if PRO becomes law.

Protecting renters and expanding the housing supply are not opposing goals. City Council should pursue policies that do both by creating a stable environment where housing providers can maintain existing properties and invest in new ones.

Stephen Sise is the Chief Operating Officer for Golub & Company, a vertically integrated real estate firm providing acquisitions, development, investment, property management, advisory services, marketing and leasing services.