The second floor of Chicago's City Hall was set for a big press conference Wednesday morning. Press releases had been sent and dozens of activists had gathered around the lobby's podium to hear Ald. Pat Dowell (3rd Ward) explain the importance of a new housing ordinance she was prepared to introduce during the council's meeting later that day. Then, suddenly, Dowell pulled the plug. At first glance, it looked like another promising piece of legislation was going to be spiked by the powers-that-be in City Hall. But the cancellation actually turned out to be great news for the folks assembled.

Here's what happened. Hoping to address the precipitous rise in home vacancies that's afflicting practically every corner of the city, Dowell crafted legislation to strengthen the city's existing vacant property ordinance. Specifically, her measure would expand the definition of "ownership" to include banks, financial institutions, or mortgage servicers who have initiated the process of foreclosure on a home. That would force the banks to register the properties (for a fee) with the city and maintain the lot so as to prevent both plummeting property tax rates and rising crime.

But on Wednesday morning, Dowell called off the press conference and choose instead to introduce the bill without fanfare during the meeting a few hours later. On Thursday, the South Side alderman told us that the Daley administration was also interested in supporting the underlying bill and expressed interest in working out some kinks over the next few months.**

It's possible that Daley reached out because he recognizes that this measure -- loosely modeled off of an ambitious statehouse proposal that was eventually gutted by banks and realtors last session -- is just plain old good policy. Too often now, when a borrower defaults on his or her home, the lender who dished out the loan (which, in many cases, was irresponsible) lets the property languish. Dowell says one home she found in her ward was foreclosed upon by LaSalle Bank in 2008 and still sits empty and unattended. Roughly two-thirds of the estimated 12,500 vacant buildings within the city haven't even been registered as unoccupied, a problem that's been magnified since the foreclosure crisis set in.

The group Action Now is a member of the Foreclosure Convening coalition that organized around the bill.  President Michelle Young told us Wednesday why she thought getting banks to clean up these homes should be a high priority for Chicagoans:

The city can then use the fees collected from the banks to clean up these neighborhoods. And citizens who help identify troubled properties (and agree to attend any hearings concerning the violation) would be provided a finder's fee worth 5 percent of the fine. The Tribune has more details on those fees, which would increase for owners with multiple units under their control:

Owners of four or fewer buildings with no code violations would have to pay a registration and renewal fee of $250 every six months per building; the fee would increase if building or fire code violations were found. Owners of five of more buildings would have to pay a base registration fee of $1,250 for each building; those owners also would have to acquire liability insurance within 10 days, rather than the current 30 days.

Owners of five or more buildings also would, under the proposal, have to post with the city a surety bond or insurance of $10,000 that the city could draw against to cover the costs of any work the city had to undertake to maintain a building's safety. Fines for owners of five or more buildings would increase substantially as well.

Getting behind this populist bill is undoubtedly a good move for Daley, whose poll numbers are in the tank (particularly among African-Americans).  Dowell says 31 aldermen have already signed on as co-sponsors, meaning it will almost certainly become law if it ultimately clears committee. She is hoping to have meetings with Daley officials in August to iron out a few details before moving the legislation through the city council's joint Building and Housing Committee in September. That could set the stage for passage in October or November.

Conveniently, that's just a few months before the municipal elections in February. For those interested in reading the 2011 tea leaves, Daley's interest in this bill sends a strong signal that he is leaning towards running for reelection.

Will we eventually see him talking about "cleaning up vacant properties" in a stump speech?  Time will only tell.

** Correction: In our original draft, we incorrectly reported that Mayor Daley's office asked Ald. Pat Dowell to call off her press conference on Wednesday morning. This paragraph has been edited to reflect more precise reporting. We regret the error.