A ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ For Landlords? Challenge To Mayor’s Housing Plan Slammed By Tenant Groups

CHICAGO — The fight over the future of renters’ rights in Chicago is heating up, as supporters of a proposal put forth by Mayor Brandon Johnson are blasting a competing measure as the “Chicago landlord’s big, beautiful bill.”

Members of the Budget Accountability Coalition introduced the Fair and Accountable Illinois Rental, or FAIR, Ordinance last week in direct response to Johnson’s proposed Protecting Renters Ordinance.

The mayor introduced his proposal, known as PRO, last month as the first major update to the city’s housing laws since Mayor Harold Washington’s administration in the mid-’80s. It would require landlords to provide a valid reason for certain evictions and lease nonrenewals, provide relocation assistance to some displaced tenants and ban so-called junk fees.

Members of the coalition behind the FAIR ordinance, which includes aldermen who rejected Johnson’s 2026 budget and passed an alternative spending plan, argue PRO would make it more expensive and burdensome to build and operate housing. Their proposal preserves some portions of Johnson’s plan but eliminates or weakens several of its central tenant protections, including just-cause requirements and relocation assistance.

Ald. Anthony Quezada (35th) joined tenant advocates from the Metropolitan Tenants Organization, Belden Sawyer Tenants Association, Law Center for Better Housing and Palenque LSNA on Monday outside City Hall to denounce the coalition’s FAIR proposal.

“F-A-I-R is the Chicago landlord’s big, beautiful bill — a great name for something that actually takes away tenants’ rights,” Devon Carson, member of the Belden Sawyer Tenants Association, said to reporters Monday. “FAIR deregulates and removes accountability from the rich and powerful and increases the burden on working-class tenants.”

At the center of the advocates’ criticism of FAIR is a provision that would expand the number of rental properties exempt from most of Chicago’s Residential Landlord and Tenant Ordinance, the city’s existing housing laws.

Under current city rules, the exemption applies to owner-occupied buildings with six or fewer units, often referred to as mom-and-pop landlords. FAIR would expand the definition of small landlord to an individual who owns up to 12 rental units across Chicago, even if the owner does not live in one of the units.

Tenants of those landlords’ properties would retain some protections, including rules against illegal lockouts, basic maintenance requirements and advance notice before a lease is not renewed. But advocates said tenants could lose other rights involving security deposits, foreclosure disclosures, fire damage and the one-time opportunity to pay overdue rent and stop an eviction case.

“I own one unit of housing. Imagine owning [12] condos, [12] single-family homes, and thinking that you are a small business. What kind of rights would tenants lose if this passes?” said Michelle Gilbert, legal and policy director for Law Center for Better Housing. “As soon as it became law, tenants in those properties … would lose the right to common-sense landlord disclosures.”

FAIR would continue requiring landlords to provide 30, 60 or 120 days’ notice before a lease nonrenewal, depending on how long the tenant has lived in the unit. Unlike PRO, it would preserve a landlord’s ability to decline to renew a lease without providing a reason.

“At a time when housing costs are rising and too many people are struggling to stay in their homes, we should be strengthening tenant protections, not weakening them,” Quezada said. “I am a lifelong renter. The majority of my constituents are renters, and a majority of Chicagoans are renters.”

Advocates also argued that, unlike PRO, FAIR was drafted without input from tenant organizations and housing advocates. 

Metadata from FAIR’s PDF lists the author as One Future Illinois, a PAC with a leadership roster of influential business and government insiders. The group formed several months after voters rejected Bring Chicago Home, a Johnson-backed measure that would have raised real estate transfer taxes to fund anti-homelessness efforts, and its board includes leaders from the business community that spent millions opposing the initiative.

Ald. Gilbert Villegas (36th), one of the architects of FAIR, said One Future did not write the ordinance, though it provided staff to “organize aldermen’s ideas” before the aldermanic coalition sent the proposal to the City Council’s Legislative Reference Bureau for legal drafting.

Villegas said the coalition relied on outside help because the City Council lacks the policy staff available to the Mayor’s Office. He also rejected claims that One Future’s involvement suggested business interests influenced the proposal.

“This is 110 percent aldermanic-driven,” Villegas said.

Villegas acknowledged that the coalition of alderpeple did not have “formal conversations” with tenant groups before introducing it, but they plan to have conversations in the future with tenant organizations, housing providers and developers before advancing the proposal.

Villegas said he’s asked the Mayor’s Office for its list of groups consulted while drafting PRO so that he, too, could consult them. The Mayor’s Office confirmed Villegas asked for the list.

When asked whether FAIR intentionally excluded tenants of newly defined small landlords from protections involving security deposits, foreclosure disclosures and the one-time opportunity to pay overdue rent and stop an eviction, Villegas said it did not.

“Of course not,” Villegas said. “Whatever protections need to be in place, listen, I’ve supported them all in the past, and we’re going to continue to support them. This is not what the intent is.”

However, the current draft, reviewed by Block Club, exempts properties owned by small landlords from most of the Residential Landlord and Tenant Ordinance and does not list those protections among the provisions that would continue to apply.

Villegas acknowledged the language “may need more clarification,” which he said would be addressed.

“The intent is to make sure that we’re putting forward a competing ordinance that will force compromise in order to continue to put forward a welcome sign for people to invest in the city of Chicago,” Villegas said.

Villegas said FAIR was just the start in drafting a “better ordinance that does not lead to a rent increase” and does not “water down any type of protections” passed in the past.

FAIR has been assigned to the City Council’s zoning committee, which Villegas chairs. He declined to commit to advancing it by September, when the Johnson administration hopes to move PRO, saying FAIR’s supporters should receive the same opportunity to hold months of discussions and drafting.

At least 16 members of the 31-member Budget Accountability Coalition supported FAIR when it was introduced, according to Ald. Samantha Nugent’s (39th) office. Villegas said additional aldermen were considering signing on.

Villegas also rejected the suggestion that FAIR would necessarily be folded into Johnson’s ordinance, saying the mayor could instead seek to add provisions from PRO to FAIR, potentially foreshadowing a showdown between the legislature and the executive branch of City Hall.

“Our ordinance already has a lot of support,” Villegas said. “It doesn’t have to be their ordinance; it could be our ordinance that they could add things to.”

Both proposals need at least 26 City Council votes to pass.