Hinsdale Still Defies State Housing Law: Agency

HINSDALE, IL – Hinsdale is one of the state's towns that is required to turn in a plan to increase the amount of affordable housing.

It still has not done so.

Under state law, the village was mandated to submit a plan by June 2015. It has yet to do so, along with 30 other towns.

Some of the others claim they are exempt because they are home rule; Hinsdale is not.

The Illinois Development Housing Authority confirmed last week that the village has not submitted the plan.

In a 2015 interview with Pioneer Press, Hinsdale Village President Tom Cauley said his town was in the process of updating its 2005 affordable housing plan, but blamed turnover in the village manager's position for preventing Hinsdale from meeting the state deadline.

However, turnover has not been an issue since September 2013, when the current Hinsdale manager, Kathleen Gargano, took the helm.

Hinsdale officials have not returned Patch's calls about the lack of a plan over the years. Patch left its latest message with Gargano and Village President Tom Cauley on Monday.

According to the state housing authority, Hinsdale has less affordable housing than it did a decade ago. The agency reports that 3.7 percent of Hinsdale's housing stock is deemed affordable, down from 4.2 percent in 2013. Its neighbors have seen slight increases in that time.

Of more than 1,300 towns in Illinois, Hinsdale ranks as having the 24th lowest rate of affordable housing, the state report said. As of 2022, the median price for a Hinsdale housing unit was $963,000. That compares to $362,000 in DuPage County as a whole.

To determine affordable housing rates, the state calculates the number of owner-occupied units that are affordable to households with incomes less than 80 percent of a metro area's median. The threshold is less than 60 percent for rental units.

Here are the percentages of affordable housing in selected towns over the last decade:

Here are the numbers of affordable housing units out of the total units in selected towns over the last decade:

n.a.: not available

Source: Illinois Housing Development Authority