Naperville narrowly avoids landing on state list for Illinois’ least affordable cities
For the first time since the state started flagging Illinois municipalities for not being affordable enough 20 years ago, Naperville narrowly avoided being reprimanded in latest state audits of local housing stock.
According to a report released by the Illinois Housing Development Authority (IHDA) in December, 5,461 of Naperville’s 53,234 year-round housing units — 10.3% — are affordable.
That’s a jump from 2018, the last time the state agency published affordability data for Illinois’ nearly 1,300 municipalities. Five years ago, only 3,778 of Naperville’s 50,410 housing units at the time — 7.5% — fell into that category.
Cities whose total stock falls below 10% affordability are required to submit an affordable housing plan to the state.
Naperville’s 2023 marks rose just above the threshold.
Naperville City Manager Doug Krieger shared the benchmark in a citywide memorandum released Thursday. City staff otherwise declined to comment on the state’s December report.
IHDA spokesman Andrew Field, however, commended Naperville for “taking the steps to try and address this issue.”
“Obviously, any increase … is certainly a step in the right direction,” Field said in a call this week. “We strongly encourage and love to see that.”
The IHDA started releasing affordability indexes in 2004 after it was tasked to do so by a state law — the Affordable Housing Planning and Appeal Act — passed in 2003. The law, made to address the lack of moderately-priced housing in many Illinois communities, requires the IHDA to publish a statewide snapshot of affordable housing stock every five years.
However, the law also established a process for identifying the municipalities across the state with the most acute shortage of affordable housing stock. Those areas are designated “non-exempt local governments.”
To be considered non-exempt, municipalities must have a population of at least 1,000 and an affordable housing stock that accounts for less than 10% of their total year-round residential real estate.
Units are deemed affordable if they are within the means of homebuyers making 80% of the regional median household income or renters making 60% of the median, according to the IHDA.
Naperville has been cited as a non-exempt local government in every IHDA report over the past two decades, except 2023.
Surpassing the 10% threshold spares the city from having to prove to the state that it’s committed to building out a diverse housing supply — more than it already has, at least.
In response to its non-exempt status in 2018, the city did submit an affordable housing plan to the IHDA outlining how the dearth of low-cost units was being tackled. The state agency approved Naperville’s plan last fall.
Technically, non-exempt municipalities have 18 months to submit an affordable housing plan to the IHDA once flagged, but the agency cannot compel compliance, Field said.
“We don’t dictate how local municipalities run their government,” he said. “We always want to encourage. That is our job.”
Nineteen of the 46 municipalities deemed non-exempt in 2018 didn’t submit an affordable housing plan to the IHDA, Field said. Of those, he said, three were located in DuPage County.
Naperville is the only DuPage municipality to shed its non-exempt status from 2018. Hinsdale, Wayne, Oak Brook, Burr Ridge and Elmhurst are still below the 10% minimum.
Apart from Naperville, Field said five other Illinois communities grew their affordable housing supply beyond 10% between 2018 and 2023: Gilberts and Sleepy Hollow in Kane County, Green Oaks in Lake County, La Grange in Cook County and Plainfield in Will County.
Meanwhile, four municipalities were newly non-exempt in the IHDA’s 2023 report: Spring Grove in McHenry County, and Port Barrington, Third Lake and Libertyville all in Lake County.
On the whole, Field said, “The number of non-exempt local governments has gone down, so that’s certainly something that we love to see.”
He also recognized that some municipalities may be doing more than what is reflected in the IHDA’s affordability listing. The agency calculates municipalities’ affordability share using census data. But there are more factors to consider, Field said.
“It’s tricky,” he said, “because there’s a lot of factors and with just census data, you’re not getting into the micro for what’s been going on. Then with COVID and rising home values … there’s a lot of factors at play.”
Reflected in IHDA reporting or not, Field emphasized that affordability statewide is a work in progress.
“There’s still a strong, strong need for more affordable housing and the IHDA is doing everything we can at the state and local and federal levels to increase the resources we have to finance more affordable housing throughout Illinois,” he said, adding that the agency appreciates the communities that are concurrently “taking the steps to address this.”
Naperville is currently working through a series of affordable housing initiatives that staff, elected leaders and consultants helped define over the past few years.
Initiatives range from developing an incentive program that would guarantee breaks on fees and city requirements if a developer agrees to build affordable units to leveraging publicly-owned land to address housing challenges.
In December, Allison Laff, deputy director of Naperville’s Transportation, Engineering and Development department, said: “We have our work program, and we’re definitely moving forward with that.”
