Lightfoot’s $3M affordable housing plan hits a snag

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s $3 million plan to help chip away at Chicago’s affordable housing crisis and prevent longtime residents from being priced out of homes in fast-growing neighborhoods hit a roadblock on Wednesday.

For the second straight day, aldermen complained that either they or their local neighborhood organizations had been kept in the dark about what the Lightfoot administration was up to.

Earlier this week, their complaint centered around the new mayor’s eight appointments to boards overseeing so-called special service areas. Those are local taxing districts where property owners agree to pay higher taxes in exchange for added security or beautification.

On Wednesday, the beef was Lightfoot’s plan to create more affordable housing in gentrifying neighborhoods — such as her own in Logan Square — by forging a partnership with the Chicago Community Land Trust.

The idea is to use $3 million in fees paid by developers “in lieu” of building affordable housing on site to provide $30,000 loans — forgivable if the owner remains there for five years — to help local residents repair or renovate their homes.

The Trust would use some of the money to renovate properties and the rest to purchase vacant land and hold onto it until a developer can be identified.

Ald. Roberto Maldonado (26^th), chairman of the City Council’s Hispanic Caucus, said he’s all for the mayor’s plan.

But, he argued that Lightfoot’s “intentions were not clearly articulated or communicated” to groups such as the Logan Square Neighborhood Organization on the frontline of the battle against gentrification.

That’s why Maldonado asked that the vote be postponed — at least until October — and why Housing Committee Chairman Harry Osterman (48^th) agreed to hold the ordinance in committee.

“It is not that there is disagreement on the principles. There is disagreement in the way that this has been translated,” Maldonado said, citing a “breakdown in communication.”

“It was the right thing that the chairman agreed to not take a vote and to keep it in committee until the two sides communicate with each other and the community groups feel they can trust the city,” he said.

Lightfoot hammered former Mayor Rahm Emanuel for his dictatorial, top-down management style.

Maldonado was asked whether he was surprised that a mayor who campaigned on a promise to open new lines of communication with neighborhood groups had neglected to do so.

“It’s too early to tell. I hope she keeps that commitment,” Maldonado said.

Ald. Ray Lopez (15^th) has been the most outspoken City Council critic of Lightfoot’s signature plan to strip aldermen of their iron-fisted control over permitting and licensing and her threat to do the same for aldermanic prerogative over zoning.

Lopez sees a pattern developing.

“Two days in a row, we’ve seen where the administration is saying, `We have everyone’s support’ and people are coming out saying, `No, you don’t,’ “ Lopez said.

“Maybe her team is jumping the gun, trying to move faster than their feet are willing to carry them. ... It’s these little things that are gonna be the slip-ups where they keep assuming they have aldermanic support and don’t.”

Mayoral press secretary Anel Ruiz responded to Wednesday’s delay by accusing Maldonado of stalling passage of “an innovative pilot that will preserve and create new affordable housing to address a longtime shortage in our city. “

“While the Mayor certainly encourages a healthy debate during the policy making process, there is no denying that the City is in an affordable housing crisis and we desperately need to bring new units online as soon as possible,” she said in a statement .

“Therefore, we remain fully committed to seeing this program through as quickly as possible so that we can implement new programming and direct additional funding for more affordable housing in areas of the City where it’s badly needed.”

Also on Wednesday, the Housing Committee agreed to raise the bar and make it tougher for the owners of condominiums to convert those buildings to rental units.

Instead of requiring 75 percent of condo association members to sign off the sale to a developer, the threshold would be raised to 85 percent.

The ordinance was sponsored by Osterman and Aldermen Brendan Reilly (42^nd) and Michele Smith (43^rd).

“The current trend to de-convert condominiums into rental apartments has many owners worried, particularly long-term owners who fear that an investor-promoted purchase could leave them without a home,” Smith wrote to her constituents after the vote.

“It is fair and equitable that investors should have to meet a higher standard when potential displacement is an issue.”