CHICAGO — The Illinois Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected the latest effort by real estate groups to block the Bring Chicago Home referendum, delivering a big win to backers of the proposal that aims to raise the city’s real estate transfer tax on high-end properties.
The Building Owners and Managers Association of Chicago and several other groups filed an appeal on Monday with the Illinois Supreme Court in the hopes of reversing a recent appellate court decision that ensured votes would be counted on the referendum question.
But in a brief court order issued Wednesday, the state Supreme Court rejected that petition, meaning the lower court’s ruling stands.
The decision ends a prolonged pre-election legal battle over the Bring Chicago Home referendum and ensures the homelessness prevention effort will remain on ballots during Tuesday’s primary election. All votes cast for Bring Chicago Home will be counted and reported on election night, an elections board spokesperson confirmed.
The Bring Chicago Home campaign has for years called on the city to increase the tax rate buyers pay on property sales over $1 million, with the additional funds raised going to providing affordable housing and wraparound services for unhoused Chicagoans.
Proponents argue the rate hike is needed to help get people off the streets and into permanent housing. Critics say the change would hurt landlords and commercial property owners, especially Downtown.
The Building Owners and Managers Association and other plaintiffs sued the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners in January in an attempt to block the ballot question from moving forward. They argued the referendum improperly grouped three separate questions into one, among other issues.
A Cook County judge sided with those groups last month, putting Bring Chicago Home’s future in limbo. But that decision was overturned by the First District Appellate Court last week.
The appellate court ruling reversed the lower court’s decision to invalidate Bring Chicago Home in part by ruling the legal challenge was “premature” and would interfere with an ongoing legislative process.
But the motion to appeal filed by the Building Owners and Managers Association and other plaintiffs with the Illinois Supreme Court on Monday argued that ruling would undo “decades of precedent” by not allowing any pre-election challenge “to the constitutionality of a referendum question placed on the ballot by municipal alderpersons, regardless of how blatantly unconstitutional the question may be.”
That argument apparently did not sway the Illinois Supreme Court.
A key campaign pledge of Mayor Brandon Johnson, the City Council voted 32-17 late last year to place the Bring Chicago Home referendum on the March 19 primary ballot, as required by law. If passed by a simple majority of Chicago voters, alderpeople would then craft an ordinance to actually raise the tax structure and determine the programs to be funded.
The measure would raise the one-time fee paid on property sales over $1 million while lowering it on cheaper homes and buildings.
In a statement, Building Owners and Managers Association Executive Director Farzin Parang said his group was disappointed by the court’s decision Wednesday, but stood by its attempt to contest the referendum question.
“This backdoor property tax hike would hurt our downtown and local neighborhoods alike, impacting homeowners, renters, union workers and business owners large and small. What is especially troubling is that Mayor Johnson’s transfer tax hike would give the City a blank check with no accountability for improving our housing and migrant shelter crises,” Parang said. “We continue our efforts to educate voters on the importance of voting no on this referendum on March 19.”
But members of the Bring Chicago Home campaign praised the court’s decision. In a statement, Doug Schenkelberg of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless said the real estate industry’s opposition to the ballot question has “demonstrated that they would rather profit from the housing crisis than pay their fair share to fix it.”
“Fortunately, with this latest decision by the IL Supreme Court, voters now have the power to set Chicago on a new path: where big corporate landlords pay their fair share, where there is legally dedicated local funding for affordable housing and support services, and where 68,000 homeless Chicagoans have a place to call home,” Schenkelberg said.
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