The ordinance isn't geared to just apartments and condos but applies to all structures in the village and is intended to improve the appearance of the entire community, said Mayor Larry Hartwig.

He conceded that the bulk of street-facing, window-mounted units are found in apartment buildings but said he's also received complaints of unsightly air-conditioning units in single-family homes.

While many condominium associations have rules that prohibit window-mounted air conditioners, officials reached in several communities said they don't know of any other Chicago-area municipality to pass an ordinance like Addison's.

Homeowners and building owners violating the ordinance will be given warnings this year. But starting next year, they will face fines of up to $500.

Hartwig said the village is willing to discuss hardships that the ordinance might create and could give some landlords extra time to comply.

"We may have to look at fine-tuning it," Hartwig said.

Village officials said the ordinance is geared toward window-mounted units that tend to look shabby, especially when spaces around the units are jammed with cardboard or boards. Also unsightly, they said, are the slap-dash braces made of two-by-fours that support some units on outside walls.

The ordinance allows window-mounted units elsewhere in a building and allows air conditioners that are installed in their own opening in a wall.

But some landlords said retrofitting their apartments with wall units is expensive, and those type of units won't work well in many applications. Their only realistic alternative, they say, is to bar tenants from putting units in the prohibited locations.

Village officials said some building owners overstate the difficulty and the expense of complying with the ordinance.

"I do daily battle with these landlords," said John Berly, assistant village manager. "Most of them are absentee landlords who don't care that much.

"To us, [compliance with the ordinance] is a part of general maintenance and upkeep.

"The front yard is what the public sees. The condition of the front is a major factor in determining property values, and it reflects the community norms of acceptable maintenance."

The village inspects apartment buildings annually and charges an inspection fee of $50 per building plus $50 per apartment, though inspections are waived in some years for buildings considered to be in good condition, Berly said.

Code violations will prompt a reinspection and another $25 inspection fee, and violations that go uncorrected can result in a ticket and a fine of up to $500.

But Berly reasoned that bedrooms in most buildings are at or near the rear and thus can continue to use window units.

"To my mind, the number of buildings affected by this ordinance is very small," Berly said.

All eight units in Vito Mossa's apartment building in the 300 block of Park Street have one bedroom on the front wall, he said. His apartments have wall-mounted air conditioners in some rooms but not in the bedrooms, where window-mounted units are the only practical cooling device.

Berly said contractors have advised the village that the cost of cutting a hole in a wall and installing a rectangular sleeve and an air conditioner would range from about $600 to about $1,000 depending on the type of wall construction and the complexity of the job.

Mossa said profit margins in apartment buildings have been trimmed to the bone in recent years because of stable rents but rising costs for heat, taxes, insurance, water and garbage removal. Retrofitting for legal air conditioners would cost too much, he said.

"I would probably just tell [tenants] they can't put an air conditioner in the window. . . . I'm going to lose tenants," Mossa said.

jsjostrom@tribune.com