In a rare city council act of defiance against retiring Mayor Richard Daley, a joint council committee Monday approved a plan to set aside 20 percent of the citys tax increment finance revenue for affordable housing.
Though the Sweet Home Chicago ordinance moved to a vote in the full city council Wednesday and its passage was not guaranteed due to Daleys opposition and substantive concerns from some aldermen.
Mondays vote was a dramatic triumph for bill sponsor Ald. Walter Burnett, (27th), co-sponsor Robert Fioretti (2nd) and the Sweet Home Chicago coalition, which consists of nine community groups and three labor unions. When the final 13-8 tally was announced, the coalition which had packed city council chambers let out a raucous cheer and gave Burnett a standing ovation.
Written by Burnett in March and now co-sponsored by 26 city council members, the ordinance would radically reshape the TIF program, in which property tax money is siphoned to 166 designated TIF districts to foster economic development.
If Sweet Home Chicago passes, city spending on affordable housing will jump from a current level of four percent of annual TIF revenues, about $2 million, of the $495 million collected in 2009 to nearly $100 million.
The Daley administration and the alderman who presides over each designated TIF district have total discretion on the moneys use.
The ordinance passed both the Housing/Real Estate and Finance Committee, despite objections by Daley and his allies, such as housing committee chair Ald. Ray Saurez, (31st), and finance committee chair Ald. Ed Burke (14th).
Speaking for the Daley administration, Ellen K. Sahli, first deputy commissioner of the Department of Community Development, said that the ordinance will require affordable housing to become the most important goal of every TIF at the cost of other development projects.
We are dedicated to affordable housing, Sahli said. But there are other ways we can achieve that goal.
With those objections in mind, Burke, the mayors de facto representative on the council floor, has worked with Saurez to delay a committee vote since March. Burnett was able to force a vote after Fioretti threatened to invoke a motion to eject a rare procedural move in which the full city council votes on whether to remove the ordinance from committee and on to the council floor.
It is very unusual for a bill to pass out of committee without the chairmans support, says Dick Simpson, a political science professor at the University of Illinois Chicago and former alderman. Simpson also contributes to the Chicago Journal editorial page.
It is especially atypical for anything to become law without Burkes support, Simpson said.
When Burke opposes it, it means the Mayor opposes it and so Burke, the Mayors floor leader, will keep it from passing, Simpson explained. The city council has passed only four ordinances opposed by Daley in the Mayors 21-year tenure, he said.
If anything, the lame duck administrations opposition emboldened Sweet Home Chicago supporters.
Are we going to continue to let the Mayors office play with us like were little kids? Burnett exclaimed, with Sweet Home Chicago coalition members cheering him on.
Burnett, and also incoming Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, 4th Ward, portrayed the Daley administration as nefariously erecting roadblocks to halt breakthrough legislation. At an interview after the meeting, Burnett touted the ordinance as a local stimulus package that would both provide thousands of families affordable housing, salvage blighted neighborhoods and create construction jobs.
However, some council members have reservations about the ordinance. Sweet Home Chicago works within the current parameters of the TIF program, in which TIF money from one district cannot be transferred to another district across town. So wards with high property tax revenues and high amounts of TIF money, like Fiorettis ward, will be impacted much more by the ordinance.
Fiorettis TIF money, which is the largest in the city, cannot be used in my district, said Ald. Richard Mell, 33rd Ward, at the meeting.
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Originally reported by Chicago Journal. Read the original story here.