Mayor Brandon Johnson is proposing a sweeping overhaul to city rules governing renting, and landlords are already organizing against the effort aimed at giving tenants significant new powers and protections.
Johnson’s “Protecting Renters Ordinance” hasn’t officially been introduced to the City Council, but it’s certain to be the latest test of his shaky ability to push his progressive agenda through the body. It includes a slew of new programs and regulations set to broadly restructure renting in Chicago.
But the major push — it will be the most significant legislation Johnson has tried at City Hall this year — will likely prompt stiff opposition from landlord-backed groups, who argue it hits building owners too hard, plus a tide of support from renter advocates.
“The deck is stacked against renters, the deck is stacked in favor of landlords,” said Chicago Housing Initiative Executive Director Don Washington, who worked with a group of housing advocates that helped craft the ordinance. “It is going to be a fundamental change in how landlords relate to government and how tenants relate to landlords in a marketplace.”
Johnson plans to directly introduce the ordinance in a City Council committee later this month, an unusual move aimed at avoiding stall tactics by opponents and speeding up a final vote.
The measure would create a citywide rental registry that would require the disclosure of major building owners, many of whom remain hidden now through legal shell groups, and a new Bureau of Rental Housing Services tasked with enforcing tenants’ rights, according to a draft ordinance and presentation obtained by the Tribune.
It would also ban “junk fees” issued by landlords, create a new “Tenants Bill of Rights” and fund legal representation for tenants facing eviction. And it would create “just cause” protections requiring landlords to provide a valid reason if they seek to evict or even not renew a lease — and require them to pay up to help tenants move if they don’t.
“Every Chicagoan deserves the dignity of safe and stable housing, the security of knowing their rights are protected, and the ability to feel rooted in the communities they call home,” Johnson said in a statement.
The measure could change as it moves through the City Council, where most aldermen have yet to be briefed on it. Johnson’s team pitched it to the 19-member Progressive Caucus, but has not yet engaged aldermen less aligned with the mayor who would be critical in securing the needed 25 votes.
Several moderate aldermen asked about the ordinance by the Tribune this week declined to comment on the measure, even after seeing it, a potential sign of a thorny election-year political calculus: In a city where renters form a majority of residents and property owners play a key role in funding campaigns, how should they vote?
For landlords, the measure is “extremely problematical” and full of “ugly sides,” said Michael Glasser, owner of Magellen Properties and president of the Neighborhood Building Owners Alliance. Building owners have been left out of the drafting process, he argued.
“In order for this bill to even begin to work, somebody here has got to be the adult that looks at what’s the reality of owning buildings,” he said. “We’re part of the community, and we ought to be felt as though we’re a welcome, important part.”
Glasser staked out opposition to each of the ordinance’s major parts.
The annual rental registry charge to landlords, as high as $20 per unit for smaller buildings, but far cheaper with additional units, “seems like a needless cash grab,” he said. That money — an estimated $20 million annually — would be used to reinforce renting regulations, including by hiring more attorneys and inspectors, though many landlords in owner-occupied buildings would get exemptions and not have to pay.
The new tenants rights and city enforcement agency would put small and midsize landlords “through the ringer of bureaucracy,” while ownership disclosure requirements could put a chill on housing construction by making it harder to find investors, he added.
“You don’t know what that’s going to bring you if you’re listed, what kind of calls and where it could go,” he said.
And the just cause component could lead landlords to take fewer chances on certain tenants, Glasser said, citing criminal backgrounds or credit blemishes.
“If there’s just cause eviction, we’re stuck with them. At least in the marriage, you can file for divorce,” he said.
Glasser added that aldermen should change the rules governing security deposits, including the stiff fines landlords face when they fail to properly account for the interest accrued by the deposits that often result in just pennies. He proposed allowing renters to choose between security deposits and move-in fees and the creation of a cure period to help landlords avoid fines.
It’s a wish Johnson’s administration heard: A current proposal would end the requirement that landlords hold security deposits in interest-accruing accounts and create cure windows as long as two weeks for many violations.
But the ordinance would ban move-in and move-out fees. Instead, landlords could only charge fees for applications, pets, tenant-incurred costs like key replacement, optional services and utilities, and they would be required to provide itemized documentation before charging fees while making sure the fees don’t exceed actual costs.
The Chicago Association of Realtors also criticized the ordinance. It risks unintended consequences “that could reduce housing availability, discourage neighborhood investment and increase costs for renters,” spokesperson Katie Howell said.
But for tenant advocates, including the ones who helped craft the ordinance in a special working group, the measure would level the playing field in a market where landlords have all the power.
“It simply opens up the government doors to tenants, because right now landlords like it the way it is, because it locks most of the tenants out,” the Chicago Housing Initiative’s Washington said.
Washington argued the changes would ultimately reward good landlords and punish bad ones by adding new pressures and penalties that harm rule-breakers and steer renters away from them. When renters can see through the registry which hidden major owners run buildings where tenants are treated poorly, they will go elsewhere, he said. The measure would also make tenants more able to fight landlords in court, where the side with deepest pockets, building owners, typically wins, he added.
As it stands, Chicagoans are “at the mercy of the least ethical, most greedy landlord,” he said. The package would not crack down on “mom-and-pop” building owners as much as large corporations that own massive amounts of housing, and arguments to the contrary are efforts to shield wealthy corporations, he said.
“Don’t hide behind sophistry. Just say, ‘I don’t want to do this because it’s going to cost me money, it’s going to cut into my passive income,’” he said. “It’s OK if you’re rapacious capitalists. I get it. We live in a system that rewards that. But you need to stand on business and be about that and not hide behind these other people.”
Southwest Side Ald. Byron Sigcho Lopez, 25th, a progressive Johnson ally who heads the Housing Committee, praised the ordinance as a much-needed update to long-standing rental rules passed four decades ago.
The groups opposed to the measure “have an agenda and want to continue business as usual,” he said.
Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez, 25th, speaks during the monthly City Council meeting at Chicago City Hall on May 20, 2026. (Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune)
“But I think the reality is that things are really difficult right now for a lot of low-income families, for seniors, for people who are seeing their paychecks reduced,” he said. “There is an urgent call.”
He praised the registry as a tool allowing residents to know who operates nearby and make sure they act responsibly. He also shared support for the requirement that landlords who violate the just cause rules help foot the bill for tenants forced to move.
”They should not be given very little notice and be displaced without and kind of assistance,” he said.
Under the current version of the ordinance, landlords would not have to pay up when tenants fail to pay rent, don’t comply with leases or refuse to renew. But in other cases when landlords end leases early or don’t offer renewals — relatives moving in, condominium conversions, repairs or demolition — landlords in non-owner-occupied buildings would have to pay five months’ rent or $5,000 to tenants, whichever is greater, while landlords in smaller owner-occupied buildings would have to pay three months rent or $3,000.
The measure would also force landlords to pay an eye-catching 10 months’ rent or $10,000 — again, whichever is greatest — when tenants move because of an “unconscionable rent increase” proposed by the landlord.
That clause could act as a backdoor way to establish rent control in Chicago, a regulation state law blocks the city from establishing. The measure does not define what an “unconscionable rent increase” is, and an administration official said the number is left open to the interpretation of judges, making the clause ultimately vague, but potentially massively damaging to landlords who dramatically hike rent in a city where rental costs are among the fastest growing in the country.
Johnson had initially sought to introduce the measure in the Housing Committee next week to tee up a vote before aldermen leave for August recess, but he now plans to introduce it near the end of June.
Even with direct introduction and majority support, opponents can easily wield City Council rules to delay a vote for a month, meaning the ordinance could go without a final vote until the fall — when aldermen will face the contentious, all-consuming task of crafting another budget with reelection campaigns ramping up.
To get the measure to pass, Johnson will need to win over moderate aldermen, potentially in areas with a high density of renters, while securing broad support from City Council progressives.
Mayor Brandon Johnson, from left, Ald. Jeanette Taylor, 20th, and NCBW Chicago Metropolitan Chapter President Kim Collier attend the announcement of a $300 million investment in affordable housing in Chicago on April 1, 2026. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune)
One bellwether for independent-minded progressives, South Side Ald. Jeanette Taylor, 20th, said the ordinance “needs some work.”
Sweeping changes to rental laws that give tenants more power are needed, Taylor argued. And the legislation itself appears to be a combination of many key demands from housing advocates, she added.
But some details don’t appear to be hammered out with all sides, and the initially proposed quick timeline “doesn’t make sense,” she said.
“It’s very frustrating. Just because you do the right things doesn’t always make it right,” she said. “There needs to be some more work on it and they shouldn’t rush to do something.”
Taylor said she supports rent control, and she called the registry the most important component. She added that she is sensitive to the needs of small landlords, but argued it is time for large corporations to meet a higher standard.
She added that she was unsurprised that landlords oppose the ordinance — or anything “that takes power away from them.”
“They are not held accountable to high standards and they still collect rent even when the water is not working, even when there are bedbug infestations, even when the conditions aren’t healthy, so what’s the balance?” Taylor said. “I ain’t interested in listening to them if they aren’t interested in helping the people that they rent to.”