Real estate groups challenge 'Bring Chicago Home' referendum in Illinois Supreme Court

CHICAGO - The battle over the "Bring Chicago Home" referendum question is not over just yet, as real estate groups take the fight to the state Supreme Court, labeling the question as misleading and manipulative.

Critics of Bring Chicago Home call it log-rolling, asserting that Mayor Brandon Johnson's administration is bundling the referendum with more attractive elements when it's really a tax hike. They seek the Illinois Supreme Court to strike the question off the ballot, with any votes collected not to be counted.

The Bring Chicago Home referendum entails taxing property sales over a million dollars at a higher rate while promising a tax cut on anything sold for less than one million dollars.

Farzin Parang, the executive director of Building Owners and Managers Association of Chicago, expressed concerns that this would exacerbate a growing problem, citing Chicago's high office building vacancy currently at 23 percent.

"Office buildings pay for everybody else's property taxes in their homes. So this is a backdoor property tax. And it's also the office industry's support is dominated by union jobs of every demographic, every corner of the city. So this idea that, you can see how these issues are connected to each other. The idea that, you know, oh, you're getting a tax increase, but, you know, other people are getting the increase, you don't have to worry about that is, we think, misleading and manipulative. This is a backdoor property tax on every homeowner renter in the city," said Parang.

Supporters argue that the funds raised would address homelessness but have not completely revealed what the plan will look like.