CHICAGO — Mayor Brandon Johnson is backing off a key part of his broad plan to bolster the rights of Chicago renters, but opponents say his proposal remains too extreme.

Johnson amended his so-called Protecting Renters Ordinance to remove “just cause” provisions that would have only allowed landlords to evict tenants or not renew their leases for specific, limited reasons. The move marks a major concession the mayor and his allies hope will boost the measure’s aldermanic support so it can pass the City Council in coming weeks.

Johnson framed the changes as a trade-off to pass an urgently needed law and praised tenant advocacy groups for helping his team alter the legislation.

“What’s best is ensuring that those families who need affordable, regulated housing have support systems in place, to make sure that we’re not doing anything as a city that’s making it harder for people to actually live in Chicago,” he said during an unrelated Tuesday news conference.

On Monday, he said in a statement the switch-up placed his side “on the verge of an unprecedented victory” after renters laws have gone largely untouched for four decades, a nod to the high stakes for the legislation that could become his first major legislation to pass in months and a critical political win ahead of February’s mayoral election.

“Relief for renters is long overdue, and we cannot afford to put this historic reform on hold,” he wrote.

But Johnson’s optimistic tone belied a fight still storming within the council.

While his allies plan to hold a Housing Committee vote on his amended legislation Wednesday and believe they have enough votes to advance it, mayoral opponents said they will hold their own vote Thursday on their competing rental-focused ordinance.

Their proposal, the so-called Fair and Accountable Illinois Rental Ordinance, remains the better bill, chief proponent Ald. Gilbert Villegas, 36th, said Tuesday morning. Still, Johnson’s decision to remove the “just cause” provisions “is a good first start” for negotiations, he added.

Villegas called on Johnson to slow down to allow for more discussions, but promised to charge ahead himself in the meantime.

“If the administration is going to put PRO on the board and stop discussions with our coalition, then we have to do what we have to do,” Villegas warned. “We’re happy to see that the administration finally got the message that ultimately the mayor’s ordinance would raise rents as we’ve been fighting not to raise rents.”

Johnson’s current proposal would create a new “tenants bill of rights” and ban an array of “junk fees” issued by landlords. It also would create a new Bureau of Rental Housing Services to enforce rental rules, establish a rental registry aimed at identifying hidden landlords and tracking issues across their buildings, and secure city-funded legal representation for poor tenants facing eviction.

It also calls for the added city services and new employee salaries to be paid for with registration fees tied to the registry, though some fee exemptions would be given to landlords at owner-occupied buildings with six or fewer units.

The aldermanic counterproposal similarly includes protections against ill-intentioned landlords amid illegal lockouts, retaliation, unsafe living conditions and security deposit abuse.

It would rely on pre-existing state law requiring fee transparency, with added disclosure requirements, but not go as far in limiting and even outlawing various fees as Johnson’s proposal.

Its backers argue some provisions would encourage more housing construction. They have highlighted the distinctions made between large and small landlords in their plan and the fact that it would, like Johnson’s policy, create a rental registry. Instead of Johnson’s plan for a new Department of Housing bureau to enforce renters’ rights, the aldermen want to keep the Department of Buildings in charge.

Both groups claim their legislation was hammered out with landlord and tenant advocacy groups, though tenant groups have more consistently sided with the mayor, while landlord groups have placed their support with the mayor’s opponents.

Johnson’s compromise pitch won key support from Ald. Walter “Red” Burnett, 27th, an on-the-fence Housing Committee member with close ties both to the mayor’s progressive coalition and to housing developers.

The freshman alderman said the removal of the “just cause” measure would help the ordinance quickly pass. He said he was worried the relocation fees landlords who violated such rules would have had to pay, initially as high as $10,000, would have forced small landlords to sell rental properties to large corporations.

“I think there’s some version that could potentially down the road make sense, but at this current moment and the language that we have, it had some more unintended consequences than people expected,” Burnett said. “I was scared that there was opportunities for it to widen gentrification… I think ‘just cause’ was a big holdup for a lot of my colleagues.”

Housing Committee Chair Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez, 25th, cheered the mayor’s move and said “just cause” provisions could be pursued in the future.

“We just needed more time, and we didn’t want to continue to hold the deal,” he said. “It’s important that we move on with a compromise that we think is still effective.”

But one of the city’s key landlord groups argued Johnson’s updated plan is no real compromise. Every new rule, fee and fine still in the ordinance will add costs that get passed on to tenants to make renting more expensive, said Michael Glasser, president of the Neighborhood Building Owners Alliance.

The measure heading for a vote Wednesday “still carries the full weight” of the original proposal and will ultimately force neighborhood owners to struggle and sell to corporate behemoths, Glasser said.

“No matter how the Mayor rearranges the provisions of this ordinance, he will never make housing more affordable by making it more expensive to provide housing,” Glasser wrote.

Still, some Johnson allies remained skeptical Tuesday of the simmering pushback. The ongoing fight is “just political,” argued Roderick Wilson, executive director of the Bronzeville-based Lugenia Burns Hope Center.

Wilson, who helped craft Johnson’s legislation alongside other housing-focused community organizers, argued the landlord registry is particularly needed and far stronger in Johnson’s version. The aldermanic counterproposal is an effort to dodge real change, he said.

“For too long, developers and the real estate lobby have been pushing and controlling legislation, and that’s the problem: We’re letting industry control,” he said. “It’s the real estate lobby, not wanting to have any regulation, as always.”

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