Illinois Realtors CEO Jeff Baker clapped again at Mayor Brandon Johnson late Friday night time after the Related Press formally declared Chicago voters had rejected an actual property switch tax in Tuesday’s election.
The top of the true property commerce group made a direct response to Johnson this week calling business leaders’ marketing campaign techniques “cowardly, cowardly,” within the mayor’s feedback to reporters.
Johnson made the remarks following election night time, after it turned clear that his signature coverage was headed for defeat with greater than 53 % of voters saying “no” to the proposal. It might have quadrupled the town’s tax on property gross sales of $1.5 million or extra, to three % of the sale value, in a bid to lift funds to fight homelessness. It additionally would have dropped the tax price to 0.6 % of the sale value for properties bought for lower than $1 million, from the 0.75 % price charged now.
The mayor was referencing the truth that he felt hamstrung from campaigning extra straight for the poll measure because of metropolis ethics guidelines surrounding referendums in addition to his strict schedule, whereas opponents of the coverage tied Johnson to the tax hike because the mayor’s approval score wanes.
“It isn’t cowardly to demand the mayor present particulars of his plans to lift actual property taxes,” Baker stated in an announcement. “It says nothing of the voters’ character when they’re uninterested in one property tax improve after one other.
Actual property teams additionally targeted on the truth that particular plans for the way the extra revenues — estimated by its proponents to common $100 million yearly — could be spent, aside from vaguely devoted to homeless providers.
“Neighborhood organizing is about bringing individuals collectively, not discovering methods to divide each other,” Baker stated. “BCH failed and now isn’t the time for excuses. We stay dedicated to partnering with leaders who wish to come collectively to search out actual options to the rising housing instability dealing with our metropolis.”
Johnson additionally vowed to maintain preventing towards homelessness.
The poll measure went down in a low-turnout election, and after a winding courtroom battle led by actual property commerce group the Constructing Homeowners and Managers Affiliation challenged the referendum’s constitutionality. A trial courtroom decide dominated the measure wasn’t authorized to pose to voters, however that call was overturned on an enchantment by Metropolis Corridor and the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners, and votes on the measure finally counted.
Chicago actual property leaders’ success in opposing the switch tax supplies a blueprint to the business as voters and officers in different main markets take into account comparable insurance policies. In California, voters in November will resolve whether or not to repeal an analogous switch tax hike that Los Angeles accepted through voter referendum in 2022, and stop comparable taxes from being imposed throughout the remainder of the state, if the brand new measure passes.
