The Cook County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously today to approve an ordinance establishing the Cook County Land Bank Authority. We applaud Commissioner Bridget Gainer, Board President Preckwinkle, and the rest of the commissioners for leading a campaign against the blight and abandonment that are holding back Cook County communities.

Members of Chicago’s Zoning, Landmarks and Building Standards committee recently passed an ordinance limiting the proliferation of alternative financial services like payday and title lenders and pawn shops. The ordinance, introduced by Mayor Emanuel, Alderman Solis, and Alderman Mitts, requires that any new payday or title-secured lending store must be at least 1,000 feet (roughly 1.5 city blocks) from another payday lending or title-secured lending store. New pawnshops will also be required to be a minimum of 1,000 feet from any existing pawnshop.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released rules today designed to prevent mortgage lenders from making risky, unaffordable loans. These ability-to-repay rules require that lenders document and verify information demonstrating that a borrower can afford a loan and define a class of mortgages, called Qualified Mortgages (QM), that are presumed to comply with the ability-to-repay rules.

Woodstock’s staff and board members gathered together with some of our colleagues last week at a lovely art gallery in Wicker Park to reflect on the work that we've done and look forward to future partnerships. If you couldn't join us, here’s a selection of Woodstock’s greatest hits of 2012.

The overseer of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Ed DeMarco, recently proposed raising fees on mortgage loans made in Illinois and four other states because of their long foreclosure processes. In a disappointing editorial, the Chicago Tribune argued that changing Illinois’ rules that protect homeowners struggling to save their homes would expedite the foreclosure process and encourage a housing recovery. This argument oversimplifies a complex problem and would set back our state’s housing market, not help it.