Today's headline: Chicago's reform test: stairs, schools, and a seven-billion-dollar West Side build. Welcome to Chicago Politics and Urbanism Daily. Here's Quinn Myers at Block Club Chicago:
CITY HALL — In a bid to make apartment construction more affordable and to increase the number of developments with higher density, some alderpeople and housing advocates are pushing the city to allow only one stairway and exit in new buildings of up to five stories. But the proposed change to the city’s building code is drawing pushback over safety concerns from Chicago fire and building department officials and other critics, including a firefighter union leader who said it “should be avoided at all costs.”
So here's one city lever finally moving. Block Club's Quinn Myers has it: Alderperson Matt Martin's pushing a building-code change to let new buildings up to five stories run on a single stairwell. Springfield couldn't pass SB 4060, so City Hall's trying to thread the needle through the code instead. For me, this is the housing story of the week, no contest. It's the math that decides whether a three-flat in Austin actually pencils out for a developer. Two stairwells eat the floor plate — cut that to one, and you get units that didn't exist before. Martin already walked it back from six stories to five after the fire department pushed. And the firefighters' union leader says it 'should be avoided at all costs.' So yeah, any win here runs straight into a code fight with people who run into burning buildings on the other side. Fair. But New York and Seattle already allow single-stair up to a certain height. We're not inventing this from scratch. My worry is which blocks actually take the density. Watch the wards that suddenly discover 'neighborhood character' the second this passes. Wait — how does a rule about one stairwell versus two make or break Chicago's ability to build more housing? Where's the safety-versus-affordability tradeoff, and how have other cities handled it? Yeah, this is one of those code details that sounds painfully boring until you realize it shapes almost every mid-rise apartment project in the city. Right now, Chicago — like most U.S. cities — requires two separate stairways and exits in new apartment buildings above a certain size. The case for changing it is pretty simple: two stair cores take a big bite out of the floor plate with concrete and circulation space, and that drives up costs. Then developers end up building luxury units, or nothing at all. A Crain's Chicago Business op-ed earlier this year said some alderpeople and housing advocates are pushing to allow single-stair buildings up to five stories here, because they think it would change what gets built and at what price point. Block Club Chicago says fire officials are already pushing back on safety grounds, and that tension's real — America's two-stair rules do have roots in deadly fire disasters. But the Mercatus Center told Washington, D.C.'s city council that ending two-staircase requirements could boost housing production, cut construction costs, and help families get into better homes. And outside Chicago, the examples are pretty striking: Seattle has allowed single-stair mid-rise buildings since the 1970s, according to Planning Magazine, and it's become the working national model. Colorado went further in May 2025, passing a law that explicitly allows multifamily buildings up to five stories with a single staircase. But if some states are already pulling back, haven't we seen places try this and then reverse course? Yeah, the politics are genuinely not locked in. Connecticut passed a single-stair code change in 2024, then lawmakers moved to repeal it just over a year later. California's top fire-safety regulator put out a report this March that took a pretty dim view of the idea — two months after its own statutory deadline, which tells you how much political heat is around it. So Chicago's walking into an active national fight; nobody's closed the book on this. And this code decision is a pretty clean test of whether the current administration is serious about structural reforms that actually move the housing needle. Chalkbeat, with Makiya Seminera:
Within that multibillion dollar budget, K-12 schools are in line for $9.2 billion through the evidence-based funding formula, which is a $350 million increase over last year. The Illinois General Assembly’s budget is for the 2027 fiscal year, which runs from July 1, 2026, to June 30, 2027.
The fiscal-year 2027 budget's out — $56 billion total, with K-through-12 getting $9.2 billion through the evidence-based formula. That's a $350 million bump over last year, per Chalkbeat. And $350 million is exactly the number lawmakers promised a decade ago: $350 million a year for ten years to fully fund every district. They're hitting the minimum on an autopilot they set in 2017. Right, and that decade-old promise was supposed to close the gap between rich districts and broke ones. Ten years in, advocates still say it doesn't get there. So which Chicago schools actually feel a $350 million increase spread statewide? This is the number I've been chewing on all week — the one that lands on real blocks. The newly elected board's gonna inherit this formula, plus the Springfield mandates that come with it, and they didn't write a line of either. Chalkbeat, with Becky Veve:
More than half of the 51 people who filed to run for one of 21 seats on the Chicago Board of Education may not make it on the ballot. That’s after 28 potential candidates had the validity of their petition signatures challenged. Petition challenges allow registered voters in a candidate’s district to challenge the validity of signatures on their petitions. If the Chicago Board of Elections invalidates enough signatures, it can remove a candidate from the list.
Twenty-eight out of fifty-one school board candidates just had their petitions challenged — that's per Chalkbeat. More than half the field could be gone before a single ballot gets printed for this first-ever elected board. And the deadline to certify isn't until August twenty-seventh, so this whole field sits in limbo all summer while lawyers count signatures one line at a time. Here's the wrinkle — remember CTU endorsed Hilario Dominguez before the board's even seated? He's on the challenge list. So the union's backing a guy whose ballot access isn't locked in. Right, so the petition-challenge game cuts both ways. Whoever's got the money and the volunteers to file challenges gets to thin out the field — and the public never gets to vote on that part. Here's WGN-TV:
With golden shovels in hand, Wednesday's groundbreaking for The 1901 Project, a $7 billion United Center area massive development that aims to transform the parking lot into a destination place of its own, included the top brass of two Chicago teams who call the United Center home.
Golden shovels. Seven billion dollars. Top brass from the Blackhawks and the Bulls standing on a parking lot they want to turn into a destination. I've been waiting all week to shine a light on this one. And don't skip this line from the rundown — a City Council committee already advanced a $54.7 million tax break for these developers. So the private bet has public money attached. Danny Wirtz says the energy flows through the neighborhood, not around it. Beautiful sentence. Now show me the affordable unit count and the displacement plan for the folks already near Madison and Western. Here's what I'm stuck on — this lands the same week the NITA transit money is flowing into Central and Laramie on the West Side. Either someone coordinated the development and the bus corridors, or it's a very convenient accident of geography. Right — and we spent Monday asking whether the NITA board, which is basically empty, could deliver anything for Austin. Now there's a $7 billion footprint landing on the same blocks before that board's even seated. Two accountability gaps, one neighborhood. If Chicago Politics and Urbanism Daily helps you keep up with the city, consider subscribing and leaving a quick review wherever you're listening. It helps more Chicago-curious people find the show.
We've put links to every story from today's briefing in the show notes, so if one caught your ear, you can follow it there and read a little deeper.
That's Chicago Politics and Urbanism Daily for this Friday. This is a Lantern Podcast.