City Council voted down the “Property Tax Circuit Breaker Pilot Program” in a 5-4 decision, ending a months-long effort spearheaded by Ald. Clare Kelly (1st) to provide tax relief for eligible long-term homeowners.
Alds. Juan Geracaris (9th), Krissie Harris (2nd), Shawn Iles (3rd), Jonathan Nieuwsma (4th) and Bobby Burns (5th) all voted against the program.
The one-year pilot program would have used $500,000 from the Affordable Housing Fund to give each eligible household a direct credit to its property tax bill equal to 20% of the final bill after exemptions up to $5,000 per year.
“I hope everybody understands this is an immediate need,” Kelly said. “We have people leaving, we have people moving out. Our demographics have changed in large part due to the high property taxes. This is a direct payment to help our residents who live here now. Those are the ones we should first and foremost be serving.”
Ald. Matt Rodgers (8th) and Geracaris questioned the actual cost of the program. Geracaris said he is hesitant because of the lack of data on the number of potentially eligible residents. Illes also critiqued the program, adding that such programs should happen “at the state and county level.”
Burns proposed changing the program’s structure so that it would provide residents with zero-interest deferred loans, which he said would be modeled after existing city loan programs. He also suggested delaying a preliminary vote on the pilot program until May 11, which Kelly pushed back on.
Kelly said she was willing to work with Burns and compromise, but added she was not happy to see the vote repeatedly delayed. Burns said he was “trying to keep it alive,” to which Kelly responded by saying, “At some point, we all need to show where we stand on things.”
Council also voted Monday night to pass an amendment to the Evanston Residential Landlord and Tenant Ordinance, creating more comprehensive monetary penalties for landlords who violate the “Landlord and Tenant Regulations” section of the city code.
The fines would range from $100 to $1,000 per day for each violation. The change would create a more “obvious and apparent” penalty for landlords who violate regulations, according to Iles.
“The RLTO must be enforceable to be effective, and civil actions are not realistic for most tenants,” he said. “So the addition of fines provides a powerful path to redress in extreme cases.”
Councilmembers passed an amendment to the proposal to clarify that the penalty fees apply to the entire chapter of the city code, not just the section on retaliation.
Some councilmembers opposed the overall amendment, saying it didn’t do enough to actually enforce landlord regulations and was redundant with the overall fines that already exist for any violations of the city code.
“It feels like it’s gonna be performative, quite frankly, because we aren’t addressing the issues of enforcement,” Kelly said.
Council also unanimously supported a motion directing staff to further investigate information regarding the former tenants of several apartments on Wesley Avenue who still require assistance.
The city ordered tenants to evacuate apartments 2014, 2019 and 2024 Wesley Ave. in February 2024 following a declaration of unsafe conditions. Six former Wesley households have leases ending between April and July, according to a staff memo.
Several councilmembers seemed open to extending the assistance by one year.
Harris, however, said she was opposed to deciding on the support for tenants until she better understands how long the assistance is expected to last and what barriers are being faced by families currently getting assistance.
“There’s no way I can make a decision about granting money until we have a better indicator of what that looks like and what our stop is,” Harris said.
City staff will bring the results of the investigation to Council’s next meeting on April 27.
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Email: [email protected]
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