Committee on Housing and Real Estate
April 21, 2021 City Council Meeting
Resolution
To Call a Hearing on Fair Housing Reform
WHEREAS, the City of Chicago ("the City") is a home rule unit of local government under Article VII, Section 6(a) of the 1970 Constitution of the State of Illinois, and it has certain powers to regulate for the protection of the public health, safety, morals and welfare; and,
WHEREAS, the prevailing literature and court cases regarding land use law within the USA and Illinois recognize the ability of a home rule municipality to issue ordinances pertaining to the zoning of properties for exclusionary (use, bulk, density, etc.) and inclusionary (affordable housing) purposes; and,
WHEREAS, the goal of creating of affordable housing units is a recognized matter of regulating for the protection of public health, safety, morals and welfare; and,
WHEREAS, in September 2020, the Department of Housing (DOH) issued an Inclusionary Housing Task Force Staff Report, in which the City recognized an affordable housing shortage of nearly 120,000 units; and,
WHEREAS, in 2018, the Chicago Area Fair Housing Alliance ("CAFHA") and Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law ("Shriver Center") issued "A City Fragmented: How Race, Power, and Aldermanic prerogative Shape Chicago's Neighborhoods", establishing the manner in which Aldermanic prerogative and related zoning practices perpetuated practices of segregation and exacerbated shortages of affordable housing in the City; and,
WHEREAS, CAFHA and Shriver Center demonstrated the segregated outcomes from historical siting practices of public housing and other forms of subsidized affordable housing or income-limited affordable housing, and also demonstrated failures to implement integrated public housing units following Gautreaux et al. v. Romney (1966); and,
WHEREAS, the Office of the Inspector General found similar evidence in their "DPD Affordable Requirements Ordinance Administration Audit," noting th...
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