Governor Pritzker Proposed an Ambitious Housing Reform for Illinois. It Didn’t Pass (Yet).
He told us what he’s doing next.
Two weeks ago, I was in Chicago for YIMBY Action’s Pro-Housing Lab, a one-day regional convention bringing together about one hundred YIMBY Action members, chapter leaders, and housing advocates from across Illinois. Our headliner was Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, who met with YIMBY volunteers and spoke about his pro-housing legislative efforts in Springfield.
And y’all. He’s so cool.
In the last legislative session, Pritzker proposed one of the most ambitious packages of housing reforms in any state in the country. The BUILD plan would have legalized ADUs, single-stair buildings, and 3rd-party reviews, as well as eliminated parking minimums and modernized local impact fees.
But… it didn’t pass. The legislature adjourned without bringing it up for a vote, which means that although it isn’t dead, it didn’t go anywhere. (Separately, $250 million in new funding for housing development did get approved.)
“We moved the ball down the field,” Pritzker said at the Pro-Housing Lab, “but not enough.”
Pritzker’s package was a multi-pronged omnibus that would have slashed the policies driving the housing shortage from multiple angles. Our local chapter Abundant Housing Illinois worked hard, organizing multiple lobby days in Springfield and marshaling a coalition of pro-housing organizations to put pressure on the state legislature to pass meaningful reform, but the bill met with classic NIMBY opposition from local control advocates.
Given the rumors that he has his eyes on the White House, you might be forgiven for thinking that Pritzker would take the loss and move on to something easier to sell. But to butcher JFK, we choose to do these things not because they are easy, but because they are important.
In other words, to accomplish things that actually matter, we have to have grit. It’s easy to forget on smart-guy social media that there is powerful opposition to pro-housing policies. Making progress requires a commitment to keep taking whacks at the piñata until housing pops out.
Pritzker knows this:
“It starts right here in Illinois, known the world over as a state of builders. We rose from the ashes of the Great Chicago Fire. We invented the skyscraper. We are made in the image of great architects like Frank Lloyd Wright. Illinois has never solved problems by backing down. We’ve solved them by building up. That is the responsibility and the spirit we have inherited. And we owe it to the next generation to pass down a growing, affordable, and welcoming Illinois.”
The good news is that Pritzker’s reform package was filled with good ideas: Building more homes in Illinois will reduce poverty, increase economic opportunity, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and generally reduce human suffering.
The problem is that good ideas are not self-executing. It takes work to build the political will to pass them.
What I find exciting about Pritzker is that he recognizes that legislating and governing is not always exciting. Sometimes you have to take the loss, learn the lessons, and come back next year.1 YIMBYism isn’t an intellectual flavor-of-the-month. Good ideas are not self-executing — and they can often take a long time to put into practice, long enough for the pundits to have gotten bored, declared defeat, and moved on to something else.
There’s a saying around Springfield: “Nothing is truly ever dead. So while YIMBYs in Illinois were disappointed that the BUILD plan hasn’t passed yet, this package is coming back — and we’re optimistic about what happens next.
And even after a legislative victory, when it comes, implementation and enforcement remain.