What’s next for Pritzker’s stalled housing plan?

A plan to keep the Chicago Bears in Illinois wasn’t the only high-profile legislative proposal not to cross the goal line before the General Assembly’s spring session concluded last weekend.

Neither did Gov. JB Pritzker’s controversial measures encouraging more multifamily housing construction by mandating less-stringent zoning rules.

Named Building Up Illinois Developments, or BUILD, the proposal was introduced by the governor in February to resolve a housing shortage in the state. It consisted of multiple bills in the state House and Senate and was promoted by Pritzker in the months that followed.

But as the clock ticked down in Springfield, the plan fizzled. No votes were taken on any of the primary BUILD components; in fact, they weren’t even assigned to committees for debate.

“The fact that this proposal did not even make it through committee speaks volumes about how little support it had, even among Democrats,” said Republican state Rep. Martin McLaughlin of Barrington Hills, an outspoken BUILD critic.

In a news conference after the General Assembly adjourned, Pritzker said he’ll continue to fight for BUILD. He noted the new state budget includes hundreds of millions of dollars for housing initiatives.

“We need more housing in the state,” he told reporters. “And it isn’t just low-income housing, it’s also middle housing … housing for working families and middle-class families they cannot get today because of policies in individual communities (and) higher interest rates and higher costs of everything.”

As proposed, BUILD would have eased minimum lot sizes and residential density restrictions. The measure also would have implemented new rules for parking requirements, inspections and other aspects of residential construction. It could have led to development of apartments, condominiums, two-flats, secondary homes and other types of housing in neighborhoods where such structures aren’t allowed now.

Wheaton Mayor Phil Suess insists zoning rules aren’t to blame for a lack of affordable housing.

“This is an economics issue, and the economics aspect of this gets to the availability of land; it gets to the cost of money through interest rates; it gets through construction costs; it gets to regulatory costs; it gets to taxes,” Suess said.

Many suburbs are experiencing “tremendous” residential development, especially along rail lines, Suess said. Such transit-oriented developments have sprouted up in his town as well as in Wheeling, Mundelein, Des Plaines and many others.

“There is a level of activity here that I don't think is being reflected in the conversation,” said Suess, who noted roughly more than 500 units of housing are either under construction, approved or in the proposal stages in Wheaton.

While acknowledging housing affordability can be a challenge, Suess said forcing communities to allow multifamily housing in neighborhoods zoned for single-family homes is unacceptable.

“I think there are things that can be done that would be much more effective than what was proposed in the BUILD Act,” Suess said.

Hawthorn Woods’ Dominick DiMaggio is among the suburban mayors who agrees with Suess on that point. Ordering communities to forego local zoning rules and allow dense housing would be “ridiculous” when some may not have the funds or infrastructure to provide necessary services to those residents, he said.

“(That’s) not very well thought out,” he said.

Democratic state Rep. Daniel Didech of Buffalo Grove believes more work on BUILD is needed and will come. Significant legislative proposals often require more than one session to pass, he said.

“Housing policy is a genuinely complex issue, and we are trying to harmonize many diverse perspectives to produce the most prudent public policy possible,” Didech said. “I expect we will continue considering various components of the BUILD Act and other ideas to address the state’s housing shortage for the foreseeable future.”

Not surprisingly, McLaughlin isn’t wild about the prospect of BUILD Version 2.0.

“One thing I have learned in Springfield is that bad ideas don’t ever die,” he said. “They’re like vampires. They just go away for a while, in a cold dark room somewhere, and usually they raise their ugly heads late at night, to come back out again and suck the blood out of taxpayers' wallets.”

• Daily Herald staff writer Katlyn Smith contributed to this report.