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Committee on Housing and Real Estate

Housing committee approves acquisition of Grand Boulevard properties for mixed-used development

The City Council Committee on Housing and Real Estate on Wednesday approved the city's acquisition of three properties in the Grand Boulevard community that are envisioned to be the site of a future mixed-used development.

Aldermen hold off on city plan to revive vacant properties

Citing their lack of input in the process, members of a Chicago City Council committee deferred on Thursday a set of ordinances that would have let Chicago’s Department of Housing and Economic Development transfer city-owned, distressed properties to a nonprofit lender.

“I think that you forgot to include aldermen in this project,” Alderman Ray Saurez (31st) told Anthony Simpkins, deputy commissioner of HED’s preservation division. “We’re going to have to hold this.”

City on pace to meet Affordable Housing Plan goals for 2013

The city is on target to successfully complete its fourth Affordable Housing Plan, according to a report released Wednesday by the Chicago Department of Housing and Economic Development.

Anthony Simpkins, deputy commissioner of HED, presented to members of the City Council Committee on Housing and Real Estate his department’s 2013 second quarter progress report on the city’s Affordable Housing Plan for 2009-2013.

Aldermen approve McCormick Place hotel, Maxim’s restaurant revival

The City Council Housing and Real Estate Committee signed off Tuesday on the development of a 1,200-room hotel that will be located near McCormick Place.

Aldermen approved the acquisition and sale of property at 2207 S. Michigan Ave. and 2206-58 S. Indiana Ave., currently owned by James McHugh Construction Co., to the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority to make way for the hotel.

Aldermanic menu money provisionally approved for urban farm

Aldermen and the Chicago Department of Law admitted confusion on Wednesday about how City Council members may use funds from the aldermanic menu program.

Revised bed bug ordinance moves to City Council

A joint City Council committee endorsed on Thursday a revised version of an ordinance to comprehensively regulate bed bug extermination procedures.

The measure passed unanimously after less than a minute of discussion, even though the joint Committee on Housing & Real Estate and Health & Environmental Protection tabled a similar ordinance one month earlier. At the earlier meeting, aldermen said that some landlords could be unfairly burdened by the new pest control management and extermination requirements.

Ordinance protecting tenants of foreclosed buildings receives committee approval

An ordinance requiring banks to pay relocation fees to residents they evicted from foreclosed properties was approved by the city’s Committee on Housing and Real Estate on Thursday.

Sponsored by Ald. Dick Mell (33rd), the “Keep Chicago Renting" ordinance requires banks and individual buyers who take possession of property through foreclosure to pay evicted tenants $10,600 to cover relocation expenses.

Cost to build affordable housing in Chicago on the rise

The cost of building affordable housing units in Chicago is on the rise, while at the same time there is less public money to finance those projects, according to the city’s Department of Housing and Economic Development.

The findings were disclosed at a meeting on Tuesday of the City Council Committee on Housing and Real Estate, where DHED released the city’s first quarter affordable housing progress report.

Measure to keep tenants in foreclosed buildings stalls in committee

An effort to prevent tenants residing in foreclosed buildings from being evicted stalled Wednesday in the City Council’s housing committee.

Called the “Keep Chicago Renting” Ordinance, the measure was first introduced last year and has undergone several changes. Aldermen passed the ordinance but housing committee chairman Ald. Ray Suarez (31st) said it would be held in committee until its June 5 meeting to give opponents of the proposal more time to air out their grievances.

Bed bug ordinance stays in Council limbo

A vote on the city’s bed bug ordinance has been tabled as questions linger over what the measure would mean for landlords facing infestations.

Sponsored by Alds. Ray Suarez (31st), Harry Osterman (48th) and Debra Silverstein (50th), the ordinance states that landlords should be required to cover extermination costs in their units where bed bugs are detected. The measure, first introduced in January, would also make it illegal for owners of Single Room Occupancy hotel and other “transient” dwellings to rent rooms where bed bugs might be present.

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