Never Mind Law, Hinsdale Lacks Housing Plan

HINSDALE, IL – Hinsdale has gone at least a decade without submitting a state-mandated affordable housing plan.

A 2004 state law requires wealthy towns with low percentages of low-cost housing to turn in the plans. Western Springs and La Grange are among those that do.

But Hinsdale has missed the last two five-year periods to submit plans. The next deadline is June 14.

Patch has been following this issue for nearly four years. For years, Patch has contacted Village Manager Kathleen Gargano for comment, but she has not returned messages. Patch left another message Thursday.

The median-valued house in Hinsdale is $1 million, according to the U.S. Census. That compares to $374,000 in DuPage County and $250,000 statewide.

Some wealthy towns, including Elmhurst, have not submitted plans because they are home rule; Hinsdale is not.

According to state reports, Hinsdale has less affordable housing than it did a decade ago. The reports state that 3.7 percent of Hinsdale's housing stock is deemed affordable, down from 4.2 percent in 2013. Its neighbors have seen slight increases in that time.

Of more than 1,300 towns in Illinois, Hinsdale ranks as having the 24th lowest rate of affordable housing, reports indicate.

The Illinois Housing Development Authority is the agency that collects affordable housing plans.

Through a public records request, Patch received the authority's letter to Village President Tom Cauley in December 2023 informing him of the need to file the state-mandated report.

In an email, an authority spokesman told Patch last month that the agency's staff communicated with Assistant Village Manager Andrianna Peterson by phone and email in early 2023 about the plan.

In a 2015 interview with Pioneer Press, Hinsdale Village President Tom Cauley said his town was in the process of updating its 2005 affordable housing plan, but blamed turnover in the village manager's position for preventing Hinsdale from meeting the state deadline.

However, turnover has not been an issue since September 2013, when the current manager, Gargano, took the helm.

Among the Illinois towns with even lower percentages of affordable housing are Barrington Hills, Campton Hills, Deer Park, Frankfort, Inverness, Kenilworth, North Barrington, South Barrington, Timberlane, Western Springs, Kildeer, Lincolnshire, Glencoe, Lake Bluff and Winnetka.

To determine affordable housing rates, the state calculates the number of owner-occupied units that are affordable to households with incomes less than 80 percent of a metro area's median. The threshold is less than 60 percent for rental units.

The law requiring affordable housing plans has no teeth.

Here are the percentages of affordable housing in selected towns over the last decade:

Here are the numbers of affordable housing units out of the total units in selected towns over the last decade:

n.a.: not available

Source: Illinois Housing Development Authority