Executive Summary
The Affordable Housing Planning and Appeal Act (AHPAA) sets a goal that every municipality in Illinois will maintain at least 10% of its total housing stock at affordable rates. Since AHPAA’s passage in 2003, only a few of the communities that are under this threshold (called Non-Exempt Local Governments, or NELGs) have made any significant progress towards increasing their local affordable housing supply.
This report continues a series of publications by Impact for Equity that encourages lawmakers and advocates to consider AHPAA as an important tool to increase affordable housing development statewide, in conjunction with other necessary legislation currently under consideration by the Illinois General Assembly. Using similar laws in peer states as a guide, this report analyzes ways to strengthen and modernize AHPAA to achieve the vision of affordability that the law aspires to and recommends action at both the state and local levels:
- The Illinois General Assembly should amend AHPAA to provide clearer guidance on planning requirements, address shortcomings of the appeals process, and increase the minimum affordability threshold for exemption from AHPAA from 10% to 25% of a community’s housing stock.
- The Illinois Housing Development Authority (IHDA) should spur affordable development in NELGs by referring non-compliant NELGs to the Attorney General’s office and clarifying planning requirements, as well as leveraging its authority as a financing agency to direct valuable Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) awards to NELGs more frequently.
- NELGs should meet the urgency for more affordable housing in Illinois and create meaningful Affordable Housing Plans that include specific, time-bound, and actionable measures that they intend to take to add to their affordable housing stock.
