04/02/2025

APA-IL Legislative Update - April 2, 2025

The APA-IL Legislative Tracking Subcommittee has had an eventful legislative session so far monitoring bills concerning zoning, transportation, and land use. We have been hard at work contacting legislators, holding meetings with bill sponsors, and proposing revisions to improve planning related legislation. The committee’s goal is to contact legislators early in the session to use our collective expertise to improve their bills, not to simply highlight their shortcomings. 

Of the list of tracked bills below, we believe HB 1814 (Middle Missing Housing) and HB 1813 (ADUs) are the strongest candidates to become law since advancing out of their respective committees. We look forward to engaging those bills’ sponsors further in hopes of supporting them both later in the session. 

Noticeably absent from the list above are transit funding related bills. We are monitoring legislative movements regarding potential transit reforms, but to date, there have been no votes or bills to alert membership about. 

There are multiple bills of interest that we are monitoring this session, and they are briefly summarized below:

• HB 1355 amends the Gasoline Storage Act and bans the construction of a gas station within 300 feet of a school. This is a good bill that will prevent tank removals and brownfield sites. 
• HB 1813 amends the Control Over Building and Construction Article of the Illinois Municipal Code and legalizes accessory dwelling units (ADUs) statewide. This bill preempts local government authority to prohibit ADUs while allowing some local government control over their placement and size. This bill aligns with Governor Pritzker’s intent to tackle the housing shortage. 
• HB 2454 amends the Local Government Tort Immunity Act to make bicycle riders intended users of every roadway where cyclists are permitted to ride. Currently, for the purposes of legal immunity, bike riders are only “intended” users of designated bike routes and marked bike paths. This bill did not make it out of committee so it will likely not pass this session. 
• HB 1875 amends the Illinois Vehicle Code and allows for instances where bike riders do not need to come to a complete stop at a stop sign; also known as an Idaho stop. This bill did not make it out of committee so it will likely not pass this session.
• HB 1814 amends the Zoning Division of the Illinois Municipal Code and would allow for middle missing housing types (duplex, triplex, quadplex, townhomes) to be allowed by right in all residential zoning districts in municipalities with more than 25,000 people. This bill would preempt local government zoning authority. We have been in touch with sponsors of this bill concerning potential revisions, but it is a critical bill addressing state-wide housing capacity.  
• HB 3256 creates the People Over Parking Act which would prohibit local governments from enforcing minimum parking requirements within one-half mile of a transit hub (as defined in the Act). This bill did not make it out of committee so it will likely not pass this session.
• HB 2675 requires whatever authority has control over paved bike trails to place permanent signage alerting pedestrians and cyclists of highway crossings. This is a good bill that requires improved signage on public bike paths. 
• SB 1938 creates the Road Usage Charge Act which would launch a pilot program to implement road usage charges to raise revenue with the decline of the Motor Fuel Tax due to electric vehicles and increased fuel efficiency. While the implementation of a road usage charge would be a large shift in state regulation of motor vehicles, the pilot program would impact a few thousand vehicles over the next few years to gather data and is a worthwhile program. 

Check back to ilapa.org for more updates from the APA-IL Legislative Committee.

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