While Pritzker’s plan would require municipalities statewide to allow denser housing, the municipal league’s bill, introduced by Homewood Democrat Rep. Will Davis, makes participation voluntary by dangling state money as an incentive rather than wielding state authority as a hammer. Local leaders have spent months objecting to Pritzker’s plan as an unprecedented state intrusion into their authority to shape their own communities….
Cole characterized his organization’s proposal not as a counter but as “an alternative proposal” built around a voluntary incentive program of state funds to support local participation in expanding housing supply, including locally chosen overlay districts where middle housing would be allowed by right. He pressed his case at a House subject-matter hearing on Wednesday with pointed rhetoric…
In addition, the new bill would allow municipalities to prioritize blighted properties for redevelopment, potentially with state assistance; exempt certain housing building materials from some taxes; and prevent private homeowners’ associations from restrictions that “unreasonably prohibit” ADUs. It would also cap upfront rental costs at one month’s rent. Whether to allow single-stairway buildings — a provision of the governor’s proposal for many buildings up to six stories — would remain up to individual municipalities…
Cole argued Monday that many of his members would embrace denser housing if the financial incentives were right and pushed back on the idea local leaders are inherently opposed to growth.
This is a familiar debate in a number of American states: people generally like the idea of constructing cheaper housing but do not necessarily want it near them as they fear for their property values and who might be their neighbors.
Here is what I want to know on the incentives side: what incentives are needed to get developers, builders, and communities to move? How much money would be available? How much money do those on the developing and constructing side want in order to change their focus from higher-end housing to cheaper housing? Will these incentives push communities to actually approve cheaper housing (say for any new residents more than 10-20% below the existing household median income for the community)? Incentives are often pitched as the answer but rarely are the numbers discussed publicly.
At the moment, the debate is pitched as state control or local control, mandates or incentives. Do we actually know what incentives will work or are Illinois communities committed to not giving up any local control (and this is a bedrock of suburban local government, if not all local governments)?
Legally Sociable 