North Shore Falls Short Of State Affordable Housing Requirements

CHICAGO — More than a dozen North Shore towns are among the 46 Illinois municipalities required to submit blueprints for expanding affordable housing by the middle of next year. Under the 2003 Affordable Housing Planning and Appeal Act, the Illinois Housing Development Authority compiles a list of all communities over 1,000 people with less than 10 percent of their housing stock considered affordable, as determined by American Community Survey census data. The state agency published the third version of its list of towns covered by the law last month.

Those local governments must then produce and adopt affordable housing plans that identify how many additional affordable units are needed to bring the community up to the 10 percent level, where affordable housing could best be constructed and incentives needed to attract affordable housing.

The plans must also set one of three goals – making at least 15 percent of all new development affordable, increasing the overall percentage of affordable housing by 3 percent over the next five years or reaching 10 percent of total year-round housing stock meeting the affordability threshold.

Affordability is judged by the percentage of total housing units in a community that are affordable to households making 80 percent of the area median income and renters with 60 percent of the area's median.

The agency's 2018 income limits calculate 80 percent of the area's median income to be $47,400 for a family of one, allowing for the purchase of a $131,667 home. For a family of four, the 80 percent of the median comes out to $67,770, with a house selling for $188,056 considered affordable.

Affordable rental units in the Chicago metro area would be $952 for a one-bedroom and $1,320 for a three-bedroom, according to the IHDA's 2017 rental limits.

The 46 municipalities identified in the 2018 list, the third since the law's introduction, have until June 2020 to submit their affordable housing plans.

There are no penalties for not complying with the act, and all 15 North Shore communities (see table below) included in the IHDA's Dec. 28 report were also listed in the 2013 report, which 68 municipalities fell below the 10 percent mark.

Some North Shore communities, such as Highland Park (which has nearly reached the 10 percent threshold) and Evanston (where more than 10 percent of units are affordable) have ordinances on the books establishing affordable housing rules. But others, such as Glenview – where the share of affordable housing has declined since the last statewide report despite the implementation of an affordable housing plan – Deerfield and Northbrook, discuss provisions for affordable housing with developers on an ad hoc basis.

Lake Bluff, Lake Forest and Northfield have also seen their percentage of affordable housing stock decline in the past 5 years, according to the 2018 IHDA report.

Deerfield, which, along with Riverwoods, has seen the largest increase in the percentage of its housing units judged to be affordable, is considering amending its code to formalize affordable housing requirements.