Thanks to a new dataset provided by the Cook County Assessor's Office, Chicago Cityscape now shows the owner names of tax-exempt properties. This includes properties owned by non-profit organizations, places of worship, and municipal and other government agencies. The dataset is integrated with Property Finder (part of the "Tax exempt status" filter) and each Property Report's Property & Ownership info section. 

The dataset, at the time of publication, includes information about 92,302 properties owned by 5,725 unique owners. The City of Chicago is attached to 19.2 percent of the properties; the Cook County Forest Preserve District is attached to 3.9 percent of the properties. Other top owners include Cook County, the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA), the Catholic Bishop of Chicago, the Chicago Board of Education, the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT), and the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA).

The tax-exempt property owner name will appear in a new column in any data export from Property Finder.

Additionally, it's possible to filter for properties owned by a specific tax-exempt owner. In Property Finder, look for the "Tax exempt status & owner" filters and enter a one-word name in the search field and select from the results. Then select the "Apply filters" button.

Many of the owner names are misspelled or abbreviated in unexpected ways, an issue in the source dataset. We have implemented a solution that repairs and improves the names of the most prolific owners making it possible to, for example, search for "CHA" to find the Chicago Housing Authority. (View the complete list of names in the dataset.)

Chicago Cityscape has added two new incentives to Incentives Checker. 

- Opportunity Areas in suburban Cook County. These areas provide residents with more amenities, jobs, and other resources. The Housing Authority of Cook County designates these and provides a stipend for moving costs if a renter with a voucher can find a new apartment in one of these areas. Every Property Report and Place Report lookup in suburban Cook County will check for HACC's Community Choice Program. 

- Justice 40 area across Illinois. The Biden administration's Justice 40 initiative prioritizes certain areas for RAISE grants, which comprises Historically Disadvantaged Community (HDC) and Areas of Persistent Poverty (AOPP). 

Look up a property today.

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A member requested that they would like a filter in Property Finder to locate corner lots. After a short feasibility investigation we found that it would be possible by locating parcels that are within 40 feet of two differently-named streets. 

The "At an intersection or corner lot" filter can be combined with all other filters. We recommend adding – at least for searches in Chicago – a zoning district filter as well as a filter to exclude condos (this will also speed up the search). (If you don't exclude condos then there will be 100s of results in Property Finder that don't represent developable lots.)

How to use the corner lot filter

• Open a Place Report in Cook County (Chicago community area, ZIP code, etc.)
• In the Property Finder filters, look for the "Additional filters" heading and select the "reveal additional filters" link to expand this section and show the additional filters.
• Combine this with another filter. We recommend excluding condo (2-99), EX, and RR, properties in the "Exclude this property class" filter.
• Select the "Apply filters" button. A moment later the data table and the map will refresh with the results. 

In the Near West Side community area of Chicago there are 202 corner properties that are zoned to allow multi-family housing.

Chicago Cityscape has added the latest quarter of property sales in Cook County. There were 30,291 sales recorded between April 1, 2023, and June 30, 2023. That is a 21.1 percent increase in sales compared to 2023 Q1.

Read about the change from 2022 Q4 to 2022 Q1.

Our full dataset of Cook County property sales spans the period of 2014 to the second quarter of 2023; data comes from the Illinois Department of Revenue and is updated quarterly, within two weeks of the end of the quarter.

Forty-seven percent of these sales and transactions were for Chicago properties. Use the Property Sales Browser to analyze the number and value of sales in other municipalities.

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Two enhancements to Property Finder save time searching and browsing for properties in Chicago and Cook County. 

1. When filtering for properties that have sold (in a given time period, or at any time), the sale details will be shown in the results. No longer do you need to open the Property Report and look for the sales details – this saves one or two extra steps, depending on the level of detail you were looking for. 

2. It's possible to filter by building age, using new data from the Cook County Assessor's Office. Find the building age filter by selecting the "reveal additional filters" link at the bottom of the Property Finder filters. 

Like all Property Finder filters, the two can be used together!

Watch the 23-minute video recording of our latest Lunch Break Update, during which we demonstrate some of the new features we published during Q1 2023. 

Use this timecodes guide to skip amongst the four platform updates:

• 1.a. Finding new development opportunities, vacant building registry: 3:25
• 1.b. Finding new development opportunities, brownfields: 6:11
• 2. New building permits filters (topics, tags, and civic projects): 9:00
• 3. Aerial and historic maps: 14:12
• Audience question about aerial maps: 18:08
• 4. Public sector investments (TIF, NOF, community development grant, proposed TIF-funded projects): 19:40
• Summary: 23:09

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