Two competing Chicago rent ordinances head for a showdown

Chicago’s City Council is weighing competing rewrites of the city’s four-decade-old rental rules, setting up a fight over renter protections, landlord costs and the city’s housing-production strategy. Mayor Brandon Johnson’s Protecting Renters Ordinance, known as PRO, and the rival Fair and Accountable Illinois Rental Ordinance, or FAIR, advanced from separate city council committees last week. Chicago isn’t alone. Cities nationwide are rewriting the rules governing landlords and tenants as affordability pressure mounts. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani won on housing affordability promises. The city’s Rent Guidelines Board delivered him a victory in June when it froze rents on roughly 1 million stabilized apartments for both one- and two-year leases. It marked the first freeze ever applied to two-year terms. But the move didn’t come without controversy. Landlords sued, alleging the mayor improperly influenced the board’s process. A judge last week ordered City Hall to turn over its communications with the panel ahead of the vote. The mayor’s proposal Johnson’s plan would expand the city’s regulatory role in the rental market. It would create a rental-property owner registry, est...