Voters Just Sent a Message on Property Taxes. Now Comes the Hard Part.
Crain's Editorial Board · March 20, 2026
Editorial: Voters just sent a message on property taxes. Now comes the hard part.
(Trace Hudson/Pexels)
March 20, 2026 11:09 AM CDT
Cook County voters this week delivered a verdict that will reverberate far beyond the assessor’s office: In choosing Patrick Hynes over incumbent Fritz Kaegi in the Democratic primary, they signaled a desire for something Chicago’s real estate market has been sorely lacking: predictability.
The outcome amounts to a changing of the guard in one of the most consequential — and least understood — levers of the local economy. For developers, lenders and investors who have spent years warily eyeing Chicago, it reads as an invitation to take another look.
For years, Cook County’s property tax system has been a drag on investment — not simply because taxes are high, but because they are so difficult to forecast. When developers can’t reliably estimate their largest operating expense, projects don’t get built. Capital goes elsewhere.
Kaegi came into office in 2018 promising to fix a system that was widely viewed as unfair and, at times, corrupt. On that point, he was right. His predecessor’s tenure was marred by evidence that lower-value properties were overburdened while well-connected commercial owners found relief through the appeals process. Kaegi also called out the outsized role of the Board of Review and the advantages enjoyed by those who can afford top-tier tax attorneys.
Even so, the system became something different than what both homeowners and investors need: not just fair in theory, but understandable and stable in practice. Instead, volatility became the defining feature — with sharp swings in assessed values and equally dramatic reversals at the Board of Review.
The result has been an open secret in real estate circles: Chicago is a harder place to finance and build than it should be.
Hynes’ victory reflects a belief — or at least a hope — that this can change. His campaign emphasized consistency, clearer methodology and a more explicit link between property valuation and economic growth. If he can deliver a system where investors can pencil out projects with confidence, Chicago stands to benefit.
But the assessor’s office is only one piece of a much larger puzzle.
Downtown office vacancies remain historically high. Mayor Brandon Johnson’s policy agenda has injected uncertainty into development decisions even as he battles a fractious City Council. And broader economic and geopolitical headwinds continue to cloud the outlook for large-scale investment.
That reality should shape expectations for Hynes. The goal is not to tilt the system back toward commercial interests or to undo progress made in correcting past inequities. Nor is it to return to the opaque, insider-driven practices of earlier eras. The goal is credibility.
That means building a valuation system that is transparent enough to be understood, consistent enough to be modeled and fair enough to command public trust. It means narrowing the disconnect between the assessor’s office and the Board of Review. And it means giving both homeowners and developers a clearer sense of what lies ahead before tax bills arrive.
We’ve previously called for reforms to bring more sunlight to this process — clearer methodologies, better forward-looking tools and more accessible explanations of how major properties are assessed. Those recommendations remain as relevant today as they were then.
Voters have removed one perceived obstacle to investment. But they have not yet created the conditions for a boom. That work starts now.