Skokie Raises Condo Deconversion Threshold, 85% Must Vote To Sell

SKOKIE, IL — Skokie has become the first Illinois municipality outside of Chicago to increase the percentage of condominium unit owners in a building who must consent to "deconversion," the forced sale from individual ownership to an apartment building with a single owner.

Village trustees voted unanimously last month to give final approval to an ordinance increasing the deconversion threshold to 85 percent from the 75 percent required under the Illinois Condominium Property Act.

The ordinance resulted from concerns over possible action by the board of the Optima Maple Tower condo building, the largest in the village. Chicago-based Trilogy Real Estate Group already owns more than 60 percent of the 277 units in the tower.

"It's basically an attempt by one entity to buy up the entire building and turn it 100 percent from condominiums to rental apartments, and that, ladies and gentlemen, is not fair," said Rabbi Ralph Ruebner, a member of the village's Human Relations Commission, associate dean emeritus of the law school at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the owner of a unit in the Maple Tower.

"The deconversion process will most likely have a ripple effect on the general market, as is the case in Chicago," Rueber told trustees last fall. "Skokie will become unaffordable for many potential renters."

In addition to condominium owners who object to deconversion, the village board heard from a few Maple Tower condominium owners who are interested in the contemplated Maple Tower deconversion and the representative of the Maple Tower Condo Board Association, according to a memo from village attorney Michael Lorge.

"Subsequent to research presented by Village Staff to the Village Board and discussions at several Board meetings, the motion to amend the Village Code requiring consent of 85% of unit owners in buildings with 10 units or more was approved," Lorge said.

According to the chief investment officer of Trilogy, the real estate firm that purchased more than 170 vacant condos in the Maple Tower that were left unsold after the development was completed in 2008, a shift to apartments is inevitable.

"The reality is that the property has been rentals for the past decade," Jesse Karasik told Crain's Chicago Business last year. "If we don't convert it, somebody else will."