I am encouraging Chicagoans who own or rent where they live to call in to the next Zoning committee meeting to voice support for the proposed ADU ordinance. Read  past blog posts on the matter to get my insight as to what the problems are, but I've narrowed them down to this one complaint:

No residential zoning district should require the costly and uncertain hurdle of obtaining a special use permit. In the only published proposal of the ADU ordinance, people who own a house in RS-1 and RS-2 zoning districts (that's over 128,000 properties) would have to apply for and obtain a "special use" from the Zoning Board of Appeals to be able to build a backyard home or additional interior dwelling (a "conversion unit"). 

A successful applicant will have hired a lawyer, but no application is guaranteed to be approved.

The next zoning committee meeting is on Tuesday, September 8, 2020, at 10 AM. The agenda doesn't list the ADU ordinance, but it's still a suitable moment for the public to give input.

Here's how to sign up to speak

Instructions copied from the City Clerk's website

1. Persons wishing to comment at a City Council committee meeting conducted by videoconference shall call (312) 744-6800 and leave a voice message with their name and telephone number. Requests to comment will be accepted from 10:00 AM two business days before the scheduled meeting until 9:00 AM the business day before the scheduled meeting. Any individual wishing to participate must be available at the scheduled start time of the committee meeting and have access to a touch-tone telephone. 
2. After 9:00 AM on the business day before the scheduled meeting, the Sergeant-at-Arms will compile a list of names and telephone numbers of those who wish to participate and assign each person a number. The order of participants will be determined by a random draw that the Sergeant-at-Arms conducts from the assigned numbers. 
3. Between 10:00 AM and 2:00 PM on the business day before the scheduled meeting, the Sergeant-at-Arms will contact each selected participant at the telephone number provided, and give them instructions to access the meeting, including a telephone number and passcode. The Sergeant-at-Arms will only make one attempt to call the selected participant; if there is no live response, the selection is forfeited, and the Sergeant-at-Arms will move on the next selected participant. 
4. At the scheduled start time on the day of the meeting, selected participants must call into the meeting from the telephone number they originally provided to the City and wait to be called upon to speak.
   
   

Our database of property sales has been updated to include the 18,864 property sales in Cook County in the most recent quarter, 2020 Q2 (April, May, June). Those sales in Cook County represent 42.0 percent of all recorded property sales in Illinois in the second quarter of 2020. The volume of sales in Cook County decreased from 33,015 sales in Q1 by 42.9 percent to 18,864 sales in Q2. 

We have three ways to find property sales:

1. Browse all recorded property sales in Cook County since 2016 on the Property Sales portal page
2. Look up property sales around a given address
3. Look up property sales in a Place (draw a Personal Place if we don't have one)

Additionally, we have property sales records in Illinois going back to 2000, but we do not plan to add these to the website. If you are looking for a property sale that you cannot find through other sources, contact us and we might be able to locate it. 

We’ve heard from some of our newest members that they saw Chicago Cityscape as a way to find new business and new clients and that’s why they requested a demo. One of the tools we show them is Proposed Projects. This map and spreadsheet shows the location and description of dozens of newly proposed projects each month.

Our succinct summaries make it easy for members to skim the list to find the ideal proposed projects that they can work for. Each project has additional details, including the full scope of the project, the name of the owner, and sometimes the name of the architect. Some projects also have emails and phone numbers for those contacts. 

In the last week we've added about 30 new proposed projects. And next month we'll add a bunch more. Some of these projects include a 203-room hotel, a new 6-story residential building, and a new distribution center.

Architects at Booth Hansen have created a backyard home zoning worksheet so Chicago property owners can determine how large of a backyard home (or coach house) the proposed ordinance* would allow. 

Access it here

The earliest that the proposed ordinance could be adopted is September 9, 2020.

We've launched "Location Insights" to place, front and center, small info nuggets about a property and its immediate surroundings. In just a glance, learn if big projects are being proposed nearby, environmental and transportation data, and development potential. 

Look up an address today