Affordability, or the lack of it, was the primary talking point of nearly every candidate with whom we met during our weekslong endorsement conversations.

That buzzword was largely tied to the cost of groceries during the 2024 campaigns, and while food costs still are a serious concern, the affordability discussion today is centered more on the lack of reasonably priced housing.

Thankfully, new ideas are emerging on how to solve this problem, and we’re all ears. 

We endorsed newcomer Nick Uniejewski in Illinois’ 6th Senate District Democratic primary. He has mastered the housing affordability issue and would offer up not only fresh energy to the state’s Democratic supermajority but also new ideas to increase housing supply. 

More recently, Gov. JB Pritzker in his Feb. 18 budget address unveiled a housing abundance package and called for state legislation to incentivize the construction of far more new housing. We suspect Uniejewski and his YIMBY peers are thrilled.

It didn’t take long for a bill to emerge. There’s a lot to like about the legislation (House Bill 5626, filed by state Rep. Kam Buckner shortly after Pritzker’s address).

We like that it would speed up permitting, which today often is a painfully slow process. Municipalities would be required to complete their permitting processes more expeditiously. If that doesn’t happen, it would allow for “third party review,” essentially letting applicants hire their own private inspector — a licensed architect or engineer — instead of waiting on the government. States like Florida, Tennessee and Texas have adopted this policy to expedite development, with some success.

The legislation would require municipalities across the state to allow construction of accessory dwelling units (ADUs), often referred to as granny lots, in areas currently zoned for single-family homes. This page is a proponent of granny flats, and we appreciate, too, that that bill doesn’t require new such units to be built by union members, a needless impediment added last year to Chicago’s granny flats ordinance. If a project passes inspection, who cares who built it? Here’s hoping labor doesn’t tack that onto this statewide legislation.

These reforms won’t make homes cheaper or flip a switch on development overnight, but they will go a long way to foster more housing supply, which is how we’ll eventually lower those costs. Illinois has a shortage of 142,000 homes and needs to build 227,000 units over the next five years to keep up with demand, according to research from the Illinois Economic Policy Institute and the Project for Middle Class Renewal at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

In general, we don’t like the state ordering localities around on matters as sensitive as development within their borders, but the steps discussed above strike us as justified given the magnitude of the problem. There are parts of this bill that go too far, though.

This bill effectively bars single-family-only zoning for lots over a certain size.

State preemption at this sweeping level is a radical departure from the current system. Yes, municipalities could still write their own zoning rules, but only within tight guardrails set by the state. That’s not going over well with local officials.

“Illinois communities vary widely in geography, population density, infrastructure capacity and housing demand. Uniform statewide standards cannot adequately reflect those differences or the planning efforts underway or completed in many municipalities,” the Illinois Municipal League said in a statement after the governor’s announcement.

We are also well aware that local authority often has proved to be too much of an impediment when it comes to new housing, with trustees and boards that gate-keep what gets built. When local governments serve more as an exclusive HOA than officials tasked with embracing housing development that promotes strategic growth and affordability, that’s a problem. By and large, local control has yielded insufficient supply.

Certainly, there are avenues for compromise. New Jersey recently came close to adopting its own statewide housing guidance before Gov. Phil Murphy used a pocket veto to halt the effort. That bill would’ve allowed the state to incentivize local governments to adjust zoning regulations to support additional housing. Carrots rather than sticks make sense to us.

Illinois lawmakers could also consider carving out municipalities under a certain size or tying rule changes to areas within close proximity to public transportation, major highways or central business districts. There is precedent for the latter in the way Chicago changed its parking requirements last July (eliminating minimum parking requirements for new residential and commercial developments within a quarter mile of CTA bus corridors or half a mile of rail stations). This is already the way many major suburbs have zoning set up already, yielding a growing number of multiunit buildings in high-demand places such as Arlington Heights. 

We understand that we’re unlikely to achieve large-scale development and a widespread shift in mindset on important policies to encourage new housing without elevating the conversation to this level, but we hope the governor brings locals to the table before ramming this down their throats. Most villages don’t have enough incentive to change on their own, but they don’t deserve to have their authority completely undermined, either.

We’ll add that no housing reform conversation can ignore Illinois’ exceptionally high property tax burden, which continues to discourage development and homeownership. This legislation doesn’t touch that essential component of affordability.

Property taxes aside, Pritzker’s plan has all of the right red-tape-cutting ideas baked in, and we are pleased to see the governor championing this issue. In fact, many of the proposals in this bill offer an excellent blueprint for local reforms. Smart leaders would be wise to take heed and adopt many of these ideas voluntarily and preemptively.

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