Landlords Fight Chicago Tenant Protections

An effort to expand tenant protections in Chicago is putting some landlords on edge.

Chicago City Council’s Committee on Housing and Real Estate reviewed proposed updates to the city’s existing Residential Landlord and Tenant Ordinance this week including just cause eviction requirements and caps on certain rental fees.

Landlord groups say these regulations, known collectively as the Protecting Renters Ordinance, will only exacerbate an ongoing undersupply of new apartment construction contributing to skyrocketing rents.

“[The Protecting Renters Ordinance] would impose broad new financial burdens on responsible housing providers who are essential to Chicago’s neighborhoods, while doing nothing to address the underlying challenge of housing affordability: lack of supply,” a joint statement from the Chicago Association of Realtors, the Chicagoland Apartment Association and Illinois Realtors read.

Last year, Chicago OK’d more than 4,900 new housing units across the city, an almost 15 percent year-over-year increase. However, both 2024 and 2025 lagged 2023, which saw the approval of some 9,500 units across the city, a TRD Data analysis found.

In the fourth quarter of 2025, rents were up 8.6 percent year-over-year, according to Integra Realty Resources.

The five main components of the newly proposed renter protections are the following:

A citywide rental registry that requires landlords to provide their contact information to the city and pay an annual registration fee between $20 to $60 per unit (with the exception of owner-occupied 2-6 flats and CHA and nonprofit affordable housing properties)
The creation of a new Bureau of Rental Housing Services to handle habitability complaints and streamline the eviction process
Codification of the existing pilot program that provides legal assistance to renters under certain income thresholds who are facing eviction
A requirement for landlords to show “just cause” for eviction or nonrenewal and provide monetary relocation assistance to tenants if they face nonrenewal for demolition, repairs, condo conversion or owner move-in
A cap on certain tenant fees such as application fees, pet fees, tenant-incured costs (key replacement, insufficient funds charge), optional services and amenities and utility pass-throughs

Proponents of the plan say it creates necessary guardrails to prevent displacement of rent-burdened residents.

“For far too long, renters have been left on their own while being forced to navigate rising costs, predatory practices and corporate consolidation in a housing market that too often puts profit before people,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said in a news release announcing the proposed ordinance.

The opposition brewing against Chicago’s new tenant protections comes after lobbying groups successfully campaigned to shrink the boundaries of a right-of-first refusal pilot area on the Northwest Side and encouraged voters to reject an increase to the city’s real estate transfer tax aimed at funding homelessness prevention efforts.

Johnson is in a vulnerable position as more candidates throw their hats in the ring to run for mayor in 2027.

Still, not all of Johnson’s real estate-related policies have fallen flat with industry professionals.

The elimination of parking minimums in much of the city, a $1.25 billion affordable housing and economic development bond, subsidies for office-to-residential conversions and the expansion of zoning that allows ADUs all have drawn praise from the industry.

Debate over the Protecting Renters Ordinance is in early phases and a vote has not yet advanced from the city’s housing committee to a full city council vote.