CHICAGO — Mayor Brandon Johnson plans to cut through some of the city’s bureaucracy to streamline housing and commercial development, according to a new report.
Johnson’s Cut the Tape report, released Friday, details 107 recommendations to make Chicago’s development process more efficient.
The report comes after Johnson in December ordered 14 city departments to evaluate their processes related to development to remove “bottlenecks” that result in slow proposal reviews and approvals. More than 100 city staff members and 90 stakeholders were interviewed, and staff working on the report conferred with six large metropolitan cities to form the recommended changes.
“Our mission is to foster growth and elevate Chicago’s economic landscape, as outlined in the Cut the Tape report, which aims for a more effective and streamlined development process,” Johnson said in a statement. “This strategy will quickly increase residential and commercial projects, stimulating business sectors and addressing the urgent need for housing. Together, we’re breaking down barriers to progress and building a prosperous city for all.”
The report highlights three priorities: build faster, build everywhere and build together. This encompasses speeding up development timelines, allowing more housing and businesses to be developed in more places and partnering with a variety of stakeholders to make that happen.
And it lists the administration’s 10 top priorities for changes, dubbed the “10 big bets.”
The top 10 recommendations:
- Create a new director of Process Improvement role at the Mayor’s Office.
- Create policies that will expedite reviews for affordable housing projects.
- Adopt “transformational” zoning changes that would eliminate minimum parking requirements, streamline special use permits and more.
- Improve boards and commission processes.
- Streamline design and construction requirements.
- Reduce the number of design review meetings within the Department of Planning and Development from three to one, and reassess the role of the Committee on Design.
- Eliminate Phase 1 and 2 environmental reviews as a requirement for sale of environmentally cleared city-owned parcels.
- Expand the finance pilot for cash advance payment options.
- Create an online City Wallet account to improve options for customer billing, online payments and debt check.
- Work to reduce the administrative burden of the city’s economic disclosure statement.
Eliminating the minimum parking requirement is a concrete example of how the development processes and timelines can be improved exponentially, said Ciere Boatright, commissioner of the Department of Planning and Development.
“I don’t know that anyone besides developers understand how expensive it is to build parking,” Boatright said. “We’ve recognized over the years that increases construction costs. Real estate development is very hard. It’s expensive. Right now, interest rates are high; capital is constrained.”
More than 50 other cities and towns across the United States have ditched their parking minimums, including Austin, Texas, and San Jose, California, NPR reported in January.
In Chicago, minimum parking requirements are mandated based on population density for particular areas in addition to the kind of zoning a development has.
In Downtown commercial and residential areas, that means .55 spaces for every dwelling unit. In less dense areas, it can require one parking space for every dwelling unit, according to the municipal code.
Parking garages add major costs to building housing, with a single space costing up to $50,000, according to a report from NPR.
Additionally, a 2017 study found parking minimums often are burdensome to renters, increasing the cost of rent per housing unit by about 17 percent.
“So, if there are things that we can do to help encourage development and help to make it more efficient, cost-efficient, thereby bringing in more units of housing and creating more affordable units … it’s a no-brainer,” Boatright said.
By engaging developers to make recommendations like eliminating parking minimums and speeding up inspection and permitting timelines, Johnson is making a statement that he is pro-business and development.
“Everything that I’ve done has been for the development and expanding of business … particularly those who rely on those businesses, which are the people of Chicago. So this is a continuation of what my administration has set out to do from the very beginning,” Johnson said.
Cut the Tape also relies on bringing several departments up to date with technology. This includes digitizing certain processes and creating an online program called City Wallet that will allow customer billing and payments to be centralized in one system online.
It was revealed during the 2024 budget season that some departments — including the buildings department — need technology upgrades. Officials from the department identified technology as the biggest hurdle for improving their services, asking to coordinate improvement efforts with the city.
The Cut the Tape report includes improvements to online data and management systems for the Department of Buildings. The city has already created an online permit application system and is working on creating a permitting and licensing portal.
“The Department of Buildings is really trying to embrace technology,” said Kenya Merritt, deputy mayor of Business and Neighborhood Development. “However, without the Department of Technology, they were at an impasse. And so now with the Department of Technology and Innovation, they’re able to put all their ideas on the forefront.”
Of the 107 recommendations, 28 require City Council approval, 56 require approval of various commissioners, 11 require action from the Mayor’s Office and one requires action from the Illinois state legislature. Others require approval or action of the deputy mayor or city comptroller, according to the report.
“This is something that has been in the making from my administration for the last few months, but it’s been … a pervasive problem for decades,” Johnson said. “So my team is going to be working very diligently to pull the City Council together.”
The timeline for implementation of all recommendations ranges from three months to over a year, according to the report.
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