A bill in Springfield could have a big impact on the way Chicago deals with vacant homes. State. Rep. Karen Yarbrough's Housing Committee is scheduled to take up legislation this morning has its roots in a Chicago ordinance 3rd Ward Ald. Pat Dowell first drafted last summer. HB 1109, as we first noted a couple of weeks ago, would give muncipalities in Illinois more tools to deal with the vacant homes, many of them in the foreclosure process and many of them blighted, that destabilize neighborhoods. The bill would authorize cities to create rules for the maintenance of vacant properties, impose registration fees on owners of empty buildings, and assess fines for those who fail to comply.

"This would allow the City to hold servicers that have filed a foreclosure on the vacant property, but have not yet acquired the title in a judicial sale, accountable to register, maintain, and secure the property and abide by the vacant property ordinance," the Woodstock Institute writes of HB 1109. "It would also address the problem of possible walkaways, where servicer puts off filing a foreclosure on a vacant property even though the mortgage may be seriously delinquent." Woodstock has estimated "red flag" foreclosures -- empty structures that went into the foreclosure process but haven't come out  -- cost taxpayers $36 million annually.

Dowell told Progress Illinois yesterday that the city's Department of Law said the bill she drafted last summer wasn't legal under state law. "The city has been pursing an amendment to HB 1109 that would basically allow them to pass my ordinance in legislation at the state level," Dowell said. "It basically does some similar things as my ordinance. My ordinance held these banks and other owners and mortgage holders responsible for the maintenance of their vacant properties."

Among other provisions in its original form, Dowell's bill also would have required owners to put up a bond so that when the city spends money cleaning or boarding up a building, the city could deduct from the bond rather than spend tax dollars on those tasks. Dowell said if state lawmakers act, she'll introduce another version of the bill into City Council. The issue hasn't waned, even as lawmakers figure out the legalese. "Many aldermen have these problem buildings," Dowell said. "We spend a lot of time dealing with abandoned and vacant properties."

UPDATE (2:16 p.m.): HB 1109 passed out of the Housing Committee today by a 7-4 margin.