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Chicago renters displaced when their buildings are converted to condominiums would get one month's rent toward relocation expenses and at least nine months' notice, under reforms recommended Thursday and embraced by Mayor Daley.

Daley said he would introduce an ordinance at Wednesday's City Council meeting that would enact into law all of the recommendations made by the condominium taskforce he appointed nearly three years ago.

The irony is, the panel took so long to study the issue that the condo conversion epidemic has long since passed.

The problem now is condo owners who cannot sell their units renting them out in buildings hovering near foreclosure.

"They are renting in newly-developed condo buildings that were not put together with enough financing and without enough savvy to run the building properly," said Kathy Clark, of the Lawyers Committee for Better Housing.

"Renters are being affected. Buildings are getting rundown. The unit the tenant is renting may go into foreclosure. Then, they're displaced."

None of those problems would be addressed by the mayor's ordinance.

Instead, the taskforce targeted its recommendations to remedy the old crisis created by condo conversions that displaced thousands of tenants before the housing market collapsed.

At the panel's urging, Daley said he would propose:

* More than doubling the advance notice to tenants before condo conversions - from four to nine months. Lease extensions would also increase from four-to-nine months.

* Requiring landlords to provide first-ever relocation assistance to tenants displaced by condo conversions. The amount required would be one month's rent at the highest amount charged or $1,500, whichever is greater.

* Establishing a mandatory condo registration program. Developers would be required to obtain a residential real estate developer's license, then register with the city and pay a per-unit administrative fee.

Without certification, developers would be ineligible for real estate transfer stamps and forced to pay a per-unit penalty. Closings would be delayed until the fine is paid.

* Requiring a standardized disclosure summary and enhanced property report to inform tenants about the physical condition of buildings targeted for conversion and the financial requirements upon occupancy.

At a news conference at Blackhawk Park, 2318 N. Lavergne, Daley called Chicago a "city of renters" and relocation assistance a lifeline for hardpressed families.

"They've been living there four or five years. They have two or three children. All of the sudden, they're gonna convert it. . . . It's a shock to them. He or she could be working one or two or three jobs and trying to feed a family. It's a fairness issue," he said.

Daley acknowledged that the wave of condo conversion that shrunk Chicago's stock of rental housing has been supplanted by other problems tied to the foreclosure epidemic.

But the mayor said he's confident the market will make a comeback and that tenants will need protections when it does.

"We cannot give up our commitment to affordable housing - even in this economic crisis. There's no way," Daley said.

"A lot of people say, ‘We can't do this.' It's a mistake. There are still priorities. If you don't have that priority, you lose it. Then, more people will fall through the cracks. Then, we're back to square one."