Rapid Recap: City Council delays Vacation Rentals vote

Isabella Kunc and Eliza Martin

February 11, 2026

The Daily Northwestern · Rapid Recap: City Council delays Vacation Rentals vote

Evanston City Council delayed a vote to amend an ordinance surrounding short-term Evanston rental properties for the second time on Monday. The council also approved summaries of city council goals and a plan to apply for a federal infrastructure funding grant.

JUAN GERACARIS: This referral has been to kind of close loopholes and shut the door on what’s, a lot of us think is, the commodification of housing. We’re running this line where we’re trying to do as much as we can to limit this, but also stay within law and not expose ourselves.

ISABELLA KUNC: That was 9th Ward councilmember Juan Geracaris talking about the vacation rental ordinance amendment at the Evanston City Council meeting on Monday, Feb. 9th.

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ISABELLA KUNC: From The Daily Northwestern, I’m Isabella Kunc.

ELIZA MARTIN: And I’m Eliza Martin. This is a City Council Rapid Recap for Everything Evanston, a podcast covering all things Evanston.

ISABELLA KUNC: This is the council’s second time delaying a vote on an amendment to the Vacation Rentals Ordinance while looking for more time to debate its language and definitions.

At the meeting, city council walked back a previously amended definition that classified anything rented for under one year without a lease as a vacation rental. They shortened this to a period under 30 consecutive days.

ELIZA MARTIN: The amendment was previously changed to prohibit vacation rental units operating within 600 feet of each other and limited the number of rental units in a building to 25%.

ISABELLA KUNC: City council plans to return to the amendments at their Feb. 23 meeting.

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ELIZA MARTIN: After some debate, the council also adopted a set of City Council Goals summaries. Goals include housing affordability, climate action and resiliency, economic development, finance and operational performance, public health and safety, and parks and infrastructure.

Summaries state intentions to implement policies that reduce housing costs, reduce fossil fuel pollution and retain local businesses.

After the discussion, 8th Ward councilmember Matt Rodgers, who drafted the goals, reaffirmed the council’s overarching goal of working for the good of the community.

MATT RODGERS: We have one goal, and that’s really to deliver city services to our residents as cost effectively as we can, as efficiently as we can, and as well as we can and all of this kind of falls underneath that.

ISABELLA KUNC: City council reviews its goals annually. Once approved, they are used to guide council members in creating work plans and organizing quarterly updates.

Council voted to authorize the city manager to submit a grant application for federal funding from the Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development, or BUILD, grant program.

ELIZA MARTIN: The BUILD grant provides up to 100% funds for planning or constructing surface transportation infrastructure projects. Evanston will apply for Phase 1 and 2 engineering services to reconstruct Sheridan Road and South Boulevard between Juneway Terrace in Chicago and Chicago Avenue in Evanston.

If funded, the phases will design roadway reconstruction, lane reductions, pedestrian pathway construction and associated infrastructure improvements.

ISABELLA KUNC: 1st Ward Councilmember Clare Kelly said she had doubts about committing to the grant without further research. According to Assistant City Engineer Chris Sous, the full project could cost between $18 to $20 million to construct.

CLARE KELLY: I’m just concerned that we commit ourselves, that we sign off, we take the grant, and we’re not going to find out — it seems like we should know the conditions.

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ISABELLA KUNC: From The Daily Northwestern, I’m Isabella Kunc.

ELIZA MARTIN: And I’m Eliza Martin.

Thanks for listening to this City Council Rapid Recap for Everything Evanston. For full coverage of the Feb. 9 city council meeting, visit the Daily Northwestern’s website. This episode was reported by Isabella Kunc and Eliza Martin and produced by Eliza Martin.

The Audio Editor is Ruby Dowling. The Multimedia Managing Editors are Femi Horrall, Yong-Yu Huang and Jonah McClure. The Editor in Chief is Emily Lichty.

Our theme music is “Revolution” by Xennial, used under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License and provided by the Free Music Archive.

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