Wheaton City Council unanimously backs municipal housing authority, opposes Pritzker’s ‘Section 8 Everywhere’ plan

WHEATON — The City of Wheaton has formally joined a growing number of Illinois municipalities asserting local authority over land-use decisions, adopting a resolution supporting municipal housing authority and urging state officials to preserve home rule control over zoning and development policy.

The City Council on May 4 approved Resolution R-2026-37 on a unanimous vote.

The measure, passed by Mayor Phil Suess and Council members Bray-Parker, Brice, Brown, Clousing, Robbins and Weller, advances the city’s position that land-use and zoning decisions are best handled at the local level by officials familiar with community conditions and development pressures.

Wheaton’s resolution emphasizes the city’s home rule authority under the Illinois Constitution and argues that municipal zoning powers remain essential to promoting public health, safety and general welfare through the regulation of density, infrastructure planning, traffic management and neighborhood compatibility.

City officials further contend that local zoning policy is not a driver of the state’s housing affordability challenges, rejecting the premise that municipal land-use authority is responsible for broader housing constraints.

The resolution states that land-use decisions are most appropriately made by municipal leaders “familiar with the unique characteristics of the City,” and asserts that existing zoning authority is central to maintaining Wheaton’s long-term community stability and growth.

At the same time, the city points to ongoing efforts to expand and diversify housing stock, citing planning initiatives along the Roosevelt Road corridor, recent zoning ordinance updates, and new residential development activity, including a 20-unit “Hero Homes” project for homeless veterans and more than 400 additional multifamily units either under construction or proposed.

The measure also calls for continued collaboration between state and local officials on housing policy, urging the Illinois General Assembly and governor to preserve municipal zoning authority “without additional restrictions on local municipal governance.”

Under the resolution, the city clerk is directed to transmit copies to the Illinois Municipal League, the governor’s office and leadership of the Illinois House and Senate.

The Illinois Municipal League, which represents all 1,294 cities, villages, and towns in the state, has led the opposition and circulated a model resolution that towns, including Wheaton, have adopted. The league has offered its own alternative, the Reducing Expenses and Advancing Local (REAL) Housing Act, an incentive-based plan it says would expand housing without preempting local zoning.

The bills remain pending; a Senate committee took testimony in late April without a vote, and the spring session ends May 31.

Would Pritzker's plan bring more government-subsidized housing to Wheaton?

For many residents who packed recent board discussions, the technical debate over zoning preemption comes down to a simpler question: whether the bill would bring more federally subsidized housing — including Section 8 tenants — to Wheaton.

Pritzker's proposal itself does not specifically mandate subsidized Section 8 or "affordable" housing. 

But HB 5626 would make Section 8 expansion inevitable, deeming multi-unit buildings legal to construct "by right." The law would force single-family neighborhoods to allow apartments whose owners, by state law, aren't allowed to deny them to someone paying with a Section 8 voucher.

Illinois also has a separate law that continually pressures towns to add Section 8 housing.

The "Affordable Housing Planning and Appeal Act," or AHPAA, passed in 2003, requires municipalities where less than 10% of housing qualifies as "affordable" to adopt a plan to add more. Housing developers denied a permit for Section 8 projects in those towns can appeal to a state Housing Appeals Board that can override the local decision. 

A 2023 amendment, effective January 2026, broadened who may file such an appeal to include "housing advocacy" organizations, who commonly work with the developers to promote Section 8 projects.

There are currently 44 municipalities, including Burr Ridge, Hinsdale, Wayne, Oak Brook and Elmhurst in DuPage County, that the state claims don't have enough "affordable housing." Wheaton is not one of them.

Part of the concern reflects the demographic change that has reshaped many inner-ring Cook County suburbs over the past half-century.

In Section 8-heavy Bellwood, for example, U.S. Census figures show the village went from about 1% Black in 1970 to roughly 70% by 1990; as of the 2020 Census it was about 68% Black and 27% Hispanic, with White residents under 3% of the population. Neighboring Maywood, also a Section 8 apartment hub, was about 60% Black and 34% Hispanic in 2020.

In a City Journal essay arguing for ending the Section 8 program, Manhattan Institute scholar Howard Husock wrote that the vouchers "ruin neighborhoods and perpetuate poverty," and reported that south suburban Cook County had absorbed a majority of the county housing authority's vouchers, citing residents and officials in towns such as Richton Park, Matteson and Riverdale who said the program imported disorder and pushed up local costs. 

Critics of Pritzker's plan make a similar argument today: that mandating apartments in single-family areas, combined with Illinois' ban on "source-of-income discrimination," will channel more voucher-based housing into communities that now have little.