Johnson wants to summon Council back to session in August to install Sigcho-Lopez as Zoning chair

Mayor Brandon Johnson wants to interrupt the City Council’s traditional summer recess to install Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez (25th) as Zoning Committee chair over continued objections from business leaders.

Several alderpersons said Wednesday they’ve gotten calls from the Mayor’s Office of Intergovernmental Affairs asking whether they'd be available in August to attend a special City Council meeting — preceded by a Rules Committee meeting — to confirm Sigcho-Lopez as Zoning chair and replace Sigcho-Lopez as Housing chair with Vice Mayor Walter Burnett (27th).

Sigcho-Lopez confirmed the mayor’s office was “trying to get a date set” for “whenever we can get a quorum.”

“There’s a lot of pending matters. Legislation like ADUs [accessory dwelling units]. There’s a lot of work that the city of Chicago cannot keep waiting,” Sigcho-Lopez said.

“The reorganization has, unfortunately, been a distraction. A reason for attack or creating more tensions in City Council. …Reorganization of the City Council has been something that every mayor has been able to coordinate. Mayor Johnson, of course, wants to continue his vision. He has campaign commitments to make and deliver. That’s why this is so pressing.”

Last month, Johnson avoided an embarrassing defeat by calling off the confirmation vote for Sigcho-Lopez, a progressive firebrand who survived an effort to remove him as Housing Committee chair for appearing at a City Hall rally after an American flag was burned to protest U.S. support for Israel.

Johnson called off the vote after the business community’s staunchest Council supporters insisted 34 voters were needed to suspend the rules to consider a mini-reorganization that had not been approved by the Rules Committee.

At the time, Johnson described Sigcho-Lopez as "someone who believes housing is a human right" and that economic development should be "focused in the neighborhoods for people who have been harmed the most."

On Wednesday, Sigcho-Lopez sought to reassure a business community that craves predictability and fears he will discourage investment by “moving the goalposts” on zoning and environmental regulations.

“There are elements in the business community who are not willing to sit down and have a conversation. I’m not sure why it’s so difficult to work with residents in working-class communities,” Sigcho-Lopez said.

“People in our communities are having a really difficult time making ends meet. We want to have a conversation around changes in regulations — for instance ADUs. We want to create more housing, more opportunities. That has to be done with a lot of people at the table. … For way too long, our neighborhoods have not been included. … To call us divisive because we are standing up for working people and representing the neighborhoods of Chicago” is unfair.

Southwest Side Ald. Marty Quinn (13th) has “a myriad of reasons” for opposing Sigcho-Lopez as Zoning chair.

Chief among them is Quinn’s concern that Sigcho-Lopez will do Johnson’s bidding by ramming through an accessory dwelling unit ordinance that “allows for ADUs to take place that aren’t owner-occupied. Investors, two houses-per-block-per-year. No aldermanic oversight.”

"We need single-family zoning in Chicago if we’re serious about building generational wealth. And the proposal that will come out of the fifth-floor [mayor’s office] will do away with single-family zoning,” Quinn said.

Branding Sigcho-Lopez a “voice of conflict,” Quinn said Johnson’s chances of securing the 26 votes needed to confirm his new Zoning chair will depend on how the vote is structured.

“If the question can be split and Byron is a stand-alone, it will be difficult for the mayor to get to 26," Quinn said. But if a single vote is taken to put Sigcho-Lopez on Zoning and also to assign the Housing committee to Burnett, "the elder statesman of the Council," Quinn noted, "then he’ll get to 26."

Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd) said he plans to join Quinn in opposing Sigcho-Lopez, but for different reasons.

“The Zoning Committee has been run quite well by Ald. [Bennett] Lawson. I’d like to see someone who continues in that pro-business vein and believes that capitalism is a superior economic system than socialism," Hopkins said.

A Johnson ally, who asked to remain anonymous, said the mayor’s forces “believe they have the votes” to install Sigcho-Lopez and are determined to do it sooner rather than later.

“They worry that the longer it takes, the more folks opposed to Sigcho might ramp up lobbying” headed into a difficult budget season, the source said.