Government Affairs Update

1) On my recent trips to the NAR Convention in Orlando and to Washington, D.C., I talked to a lot of REALTORS and association staff. The one message I heard loud and clear from the most senior Governmental Affairs Directors (GADs) is that the time for partisanship is over--at least, for now. Lobbyists and associations must be pro-active and solution-oriented to be successful in working with the new legislators and congressmen in the short-term.

Fortunately in Chicago, we have sensed this for a long time and have made every effort to work with government: to find the issues to be for rather than against; and to turn the issues more in our favor by producing credible information when having dialogue with the elected (even going as far as hiring an economic and community development staffer to do the block by block research on taxes and vacancy in Chicago poorest communities).

Despite these efforts, I realize now that we need more from you. And it’s less about PAC dollars, but more about your own skills and time. In that, I ask, as we are all re-tooling our business plans: is Advocacy part of your business plan?

2) There is a great amount of interest in Chicago and the region these days. With that comes great opportunity to build interest in the region through the business community, if it can find the reasons to be optimistic. I have to admit at times that can be difficult.

You all know Cook County and Chicago's problems. Out-of-control real estate taxes, a building code which acts as a disincentive to developers and to the region and a lack of predictability in its sales taxes, and permits and fees to name a few. Presently, many REALTORS® feel the region has a anti-business and anti-economic development climate that works at cross purposes against the very organizations that are charged with developing the region and encouraging growth.

Just this past week, C.A.R. was able to knock off track a proposal in the Chicago City Council to mandate a registry of commercial leases that would have required all commercial leases to be filed with the City online. The property owner would have had to, as part of the registry, certify that the tenant had pulled building permits and had a business license. On top of that, the landlord would have had to pay for the pleasure of doing that. Veiled under the guise that this was a way to cross-check City records, we were able to quietly kill the proposal for now; but assuredly it will come back in the cash strapped Chicago.

REALTORS® also stood up with the Mayor of the City of Chicago at a press conference as part of the Mayor's Property Tax reform committee. While the work was done this past summer, the City chose today to roll out the findings. The Mayor called for various reforms for residential owners which for the most part innocuous; but once again, the City ignored business groups call for across the board reform for commercial real estate.

With the elections over and the reality of budget problems at the state and local levels especially at hand, why do you feel REALTORS® should be optimistic about Chicago?