WEST TOWN (WBBM Newsradio) - Anyone who's tried to rent an apartment in Chicago lately knows rents are climbing ... and now, a measure that could mean hundreds more rental units in the city's neighborhoods is poised for approval by aldermen at the next City Council meeting on September 25.
You know them as coach houses or granny flats ... small apartments inside single-family homes.
The city officially calls them "accessory dwelling units" - and new ones have been banned in the city for decades.
An attempt to legalize them to help address the shortage of affordable housing was blocked over the summer, but now there's a compromise that makes them legal again ... but only in areas where the alderman says they're O-K, and only if contractors use union apprentices for labor.
It's more restrictive than the original proposal backed by Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson, but after an unrelated event Tuesday at Erie and Milwaukee in the River West neighborhood, he seemed to indicate he was focused on the big picture.
"I'm going to continue to work with City Council members and all stakeholders to ensure that we're creating as many opportunities as possible to build affordable homes," the mayor told reporters. "That's the ultimate goal."
The mayor says Chicago is on track to build ten thousand new affordable apartments ... but he says the city needs ten times that number.