After talking to World Business Chicago and a cannabis policy manager for the City of Chicago, we made a tweak to Site Selector to make it easier to locate the cannabis-eligible zoning districts. Enter "Cannabis Mode".

Site Selector is our Chicago zoning map that starts by asking users to search for a keyword representing their business. Words like "toy shop" and "strip mall" work. We convert these keywords to their "use names" in the Chicago zoning code and then show the zoning districts that allow those uses. 

It works for all of the Cannabis Business Establishments, too. That means dispensaries, processors, infusers, craft growers, and cultivation centers. 

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Chicago Cityscape's Building Permits Browser, the map and table that shows all building permits issued in Chicago since 2006, has new filters and new statistics. 

New filters

The Quick Filters section has been updated to more readily show which filter is active, and there's a new filter for Accessory Dwelling Units (there are currently 10 ADU permits!).

By request, we added a building permit # filter, to quickly find specific permit applications.

New stats

To prepare our blog post about hotspots and trends we wanted to know how many building permits have been issued this year (so far) compared to last year. To make it easy for us and our members, we added stats to show the quantity of each building permit type issued two years ago, last year, and the current year. 

This year is about 13 percent "behind" last year (so far), meaning that the number of permits issued this year needs to increase by about 13 percent to meet last year's level.

We update the Chicago zoning map frequently throughout the year. The most recent zoning changes are now in Chicago Cityscape, including all of those zoning changes passed by City Council at their October 14, 2021, meeting.

Additionally, we have updated the names of 10 new Planned Developments, to make it easier to identify and search for these special zoning areas. You can see all 1,390 PDs in Place Snapshot Explorer.

The map below shows 37 new and amended Planned Developments adopted between June and October, inclusive. The largest PD is #30, the Illinois Medical District, which was amended to change internal zoning requirements for density and minimum parking (mentioned in our latest blog post).

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Chicago Cityscape updated its property sales database today to include transactions in the third quarter of 2021, adding 46,216 records across Cook County. Of those sales, 47 percent occurred in Chicago. 

Request a demo of Property Sales and other time-saving tools

From Q2 to Q3, there was a 10.03 percent increase in sales in Cook County, and a 9.17 percent increase in sales in Chicago. 

Using our advanced Property Sales maps, spreadsheets, and filters, one can easily find sales comps in exactly the desired geography and timeframe. That area might be a Chicago ZIP code, or a buffer around a given address. 

Further, members can filter based on property type (using Cook County property classifications) and price range. Additionally, it's easy and quick to search for names to find frequent buyers and sellers. Finally, adjust the date to a specific quarter, year, or range of years.

In the 60608 ZIP code area, for example, there were 404 transactions in 2021 Q3, a 17.78 percent increase over the 343 transactions in 2021 Q2. 

How to get started:

• Look up a Place Snapshot to find property sales in an area, or an Address Snapshot to find property sales at and near a specific property
• Scroll down to the "Property Sales" section and click the "Load property sales" button. 
• After a moment, the map and spreadsheet will appear and show the 10 most recent property sales. Use the filters to narrow down, or increase the number that are shown at once.

Pro tip: Take advantage of one of our new Property Sales analytics: a summary of the top buyers and sellers in any given area in Cook County. Find this below the Property Sales section.

You can sort by total value bought or total value sold, or by number of properties bought or sold, to find the movers and shakers in a given area.

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Chicago Cityscape improved two of its APIs. The TOD API largely replicates the results of an Address Snapshot report, and returns details for those who want to integrate our vast database into their own dashboards and sales CRMs. The Parcels API replicates some of the features of the website's Property Finder functions, returning a trove of data about Cook County properties around a given point. 

Review our refreshed API documentation to learn how to put these new features to use.

Changes to the TOD API

We added several new data points to the TOD API response for requests about Chicago addresses and parcels:

• The API can now return all building permits and building violations
• The brand new ARO 2021 areas will be listed
• Bus route corridors have been added so users can judge eligibility for the Transit-Served Location ordinance.

Changes to the Parcels API

The Parcels API has been updated to have additional filters:

• Return only properties with a specific tax classification (review the full list of property classes)
• Return only properties that are in one or more Chicago zoning districts
• Users can request that each property that is returned is checked against the Chicago-owned land inventory. Then, users can use filters in their own programs to locate city-owned parcels.