Glen Ellyn can’t enforce Airbnb rules vs owner who says was target

By Scott Holland | Legal Newsline
The Center Square

The operators of a Glen Ellyn Airbnb property have won an junction blocking the village from enforcing an ordinance controlling short-term rentals against a home they bought in 2021.

U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman issued an opinion Dec. 30 in favor of Blakelick Properties but only as relates to one house. The filing updates a ruling from May in which Coleman granted a temporary restraining order to the company, which is owned and operated by investors and married couple David Blake and Melissa Footlick, of Fairway, Kansas.

According to court documents, when Blake and Footlick purchased a house on Arboretum Drive it was in unincorporated DuPage County, but later was annexed into the village. The couple said it intended from the start to use the house as part of a growing portfolio of Chicagoland short-term rental properties and secured a mortgage loan that could only be financially profitable if the home was available through online vacation rental sites, like VRBO and Airbnb. Any laws or regulations forbidding use of the house in that manner would essentially force a sale at a steep loss, they claimed.

Blakelick said an ordinance the village enacted in April banning all operation and advertisement of short-term rentals targeted the Arboretum Drive home specifically. The couple said Glen Ellyn Community Director Jennifer Heneghan, in a March public meeting, referred to one “extremely problematic” property burdening police due to the amount of complaints. They considered that a reference to conflict with a neighboring homeowner starting in June 2023.

In their complaint, Blake and Footlick assert the neighbor repeatedly called police to harass their guests, allegedly primarily targeting black or Latino renters, by claiming they were causing a nuisance. Blake and Footlick said they installed noise monitors and cameras and have instituted tighter screening of guests.

In all, the couple claimed “there have been at most one or two incidents (out of 115 bookings) arguably constituting a private nuisance” to neighbors, with “both occurring in the summer of 2023 prior to … implementing stricter rules, more noise monitoring and security cameras and tighter screening of potential guests.”

After Coleman’s May 8 order, the village adopted a new ordinance delaying the ban implementation to Jan. 1. In arguing for the injunction, Blakelick said if they immediately ceased operations, Airbnb would levy fines and penalties that could affect the viability of their other properties.

To succeed on that request, Coleman said, Blakelick would need to show the likelihood it could prevail on the merits of at least one claim if the case proceeded to trial. She further said the claim the ordinance would violate the company’s Fifth Amendment rights “that private property will not be ‘taken’ for public use absent just compensation” meets that threshold.

Because the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized “a significant regulatory burden on the use of property” can be considered such an illegal taking, she continued, courts must compare the way a given regulation affects the value of a property.

“Although the ordinance would not prohibit all rental uses of the property, Blakelick alleges that that the market for rentals lasting longer than 30 days for a furnished five-bedroom house in Glen Ellyn is ‘virtually nonexistent,’ ” Coleman wrote in the Dec. 30 order. “Blakelick alleges that economic conditions would force it to sell the property in a ‘fire sale’ should the ordinance go fully into effect. The Court sees no reason to disturb its previous finding that ‘the ordinance would prevent (Blakelick) from economically utilizing the property in a feasible manner and interfere with ‘plaintiff’s investment-backed expectations.’ ”

Glen Ellyn said diminished property value isn’t sufficient to establish takings and Blakelick could still negotiate long-term rentals, but Coleman noted the company’s arguments are deeper, including being “unable to continue with the investment-backed expectations of economic use” and the allegations that no long-term rental market exists — a claim she noted the village hasn’t reasonably shown to be “anything other than well-pleaded.”

The village also said the fact Blakelick requested money damages means the company has adequate relief beyond the injunction. But Coleman said such an ask “may simply represent an inadequate alternative that a party requests because it would still be better than nothing.” She further referenced her May opinion and its invocation of a U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals holding that “the potential loss of an entire business is considered irreparable harm” and that damages can be awarded too late to be adequate.

“It would be hard to determine the number of reservations that might have occurred but for the ordinance,” Coleman wrote, “and it would be enormously difficult to calculate the loss incurred by Blakelick’s other properties if it is deplatformed from Airbnb or if it loses its Superhost status.”

Coleman further agreed Glen Ellyn made no argument concerning the ordinance and whether it balances landlord losses against public interest. But she also noted a 2025 U.S. Supreme Court opinion, Trump v. CASA, which she said limits her from imposing an injunction reaching beyond the parties in a given case. Complete relief for Blakelick, she said, doesn’t require extending her injunction on the ordinance to anyone else’s short-term rental propery.

Blake and Footlick are represented by attorney Shorge Sato, of Chicago.

The village is represented by attorneys Michael E. Kuwaja, Richard J. Veenstra and Deborah A. Ostvig, of the firm of Schain Banks Kenny & Schwartz, of Chicago.