Four aldermen have called for a special meeting of Chicago’s City Council later this month regarding Bring Home Chicago, a resolution that would more than triple real estate transfer taxes on property sales of $1 million or more in the city to fund programs addressing homelessness.
The special meeting, described in a public notice as a public hearing on the intent to add a referendum to ballots in February, could advance efforts by a coalition of advocates for the homeless called Bring Chicago Home to raise what they estimate would be $163 million annually to combat homelessness.
Opponents argue that the initiative will add to already high taxes in Chicago, at a time when rising interest rates, inflation and other economic factors have slowed the flow of commercial real estate sales throughout the country.
“The timing of it just couldn’t be worse,” said Farzin Parang, executive director of BOMA/Chicago, a trade association for 240 commercial buildings in the city.
Chicago already has the second-highest commercial property taxes nationally only to Detroit, and the proposal would move Chicago up from No. 4 to No. 2 in transfer taxes only to Philadelphia, Parang told CoStar News. Higher transfer taxes in Chicago also would add a twist to efforts in other major cities including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle to use fees to address homelessness.
Unlike existing or proposed initiatives in those cities, in which large corporations or owners of luxury homes feel the pinch, the Chicago proposal would affect sales of commercial properties along with higher-end home transactions.
The city council special meeting was called in a notice signed by four aldermen: the 49th Ward’s Maria Hadden, the 47th Ward’s Matt Martin, the 1st Ward’s Daniel La Spata and the 35th Ward’s Carlos Ramirez-Rosa. The progressive aldermen represent areas of the city’s North Side known for ethnic diversity and, in some cases, gentrification and rising property values in recent years.
The meeting date is Nov. 14. In Chicago, a special meeting can be called by the mayor or by three or more aldermen.
While the proposal has the support of those aldermen and others, it’s yet to be seen whether it will have broad enough support among a governing body with 50 total city council members. If the referendum is added to the ballot and approved by voters, buyers of houses or commercial properties sold for $1 million or more would pay far more in transfer taxes.
Taxes Would More Than Triple
Today, city transfer taxes on a $1 million purchase of a residence or commercial building would be $7,500. Under the proposal, that would increase to $26,500, with the added dollars being used to address homelessness.
Separate state and county transfer tax rates would not be changed under the referendum.
Although city transfer taxes are paid by the buyer, opponents of the increase see it as a tax on sellers as well, since the added cost will be factored into the purchase price.
In large commercial deals, the rate increase would add up quickly.
The biggest example is Blackstone’s $1.3 billion purchase of Chicago’s tallest skyscraper, the 110-story Willis Tower, in 2015.
It was the highest price ever paid for a single Chicago building, and it cost New York-based Blackstone $9.75 million in city transfer taxes. Under the proposed new rate, Blackstone’s bill would have been $34.45 million.
Bring Chicago Home’s backers say buyers of $1 million-plus houses and commercial real estate behemoths such as Blackstone can afford the added cost, which the group’s website says would affect a little more than 4% of property sales in the city.
Funding Affordable Housing
There are more than 65,000 people living on Chicago’s streets, in shelters or doubled up, according to the group, meaning it will take “a substantial amount of money to make a meaningful impact on this issue” through measures such as affordable housing and supportive services.
Aldermen Martin and Hadden mentioned the state of Illinois’ recent $105 million sale of the James R. Thompson Center in a Chicago Tribune op-ed last month. The Helmut Jahn-designed building was sold to Chicago-based Prime Group, which has a deal to sell it to Google after making renovations.
“Every property sale that occurs in Chicago while we are waiting for Bring Chicago Home to pass is money left on the table — money that could be going to filling out budget gap and addressing key problems facing Chicagoans,” Martin and Hadden wrote in the op-ed. “Google’s recent purchase of the Thompson Center is an example. Under the Bring Chicago Home proposal, this sale alone would have generated $2 million that could have gone directly to providing housing and services for our homeless neighbors.”
Bring Chicago Home’s efforts follow different forms of taxes adopted in other large cities to address homelessness, including taxes on companies with large payrolls adopted in recent years in San Francisco and Seattle. Taxes were raised on high-end houses in New York City in 2019, and a similar proposal is on the November ballot in Los Angeles.
To try to increase the stock of affordable housing, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot recently introduced an initiative to use public incentives to encourage real estate investors to convert older, underutilized office buildings on LaSalle Street into affordable apartments.
The plan comes at a time when BOMA/Chicago office building managers are reporting about 40% occupancy on busier days and around 15% on slower days such as Fridays amid work-from-home trends that have emerged during the pandemic, Parang said.
Of the proposed transfer-tax increase, Parang added: “You’re taking two problems exacerbated by COVID, real estate and homelessness, and you’re trying to use one to solve the other.”