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:
Chicago Cityscape has added the latest quarter of property sales in Cook County. There were 25,009 sales recorded between January 1, 2023, and March 31, 2023. That is a 4.7 percent decrease in sales compared to 2022 Q4.
Our full dataset of Cook County property sales spans the period of 2014 to the first quarter of 2023; data comes from the Illinois Department of Revenue and is updated quarterly, within two weeks of the end of the quarter.
46 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.
This zoning code brief is useful for architects, their developer clients, permit expeditors, and zoning attorneys.
The Chicago City Council adopted minor changes to the zoning code in ordinance SO2022-3785 on January 18, 2023 (the S means a substitute ordinance, different from the original proposal, was passed).
The main changes were technical changes to the code, including eliminating text referring to code that was removed in July 2022, and adding some missing keywords that don't affect the standards.
The substantial change in the code is that the requirement for developments in transit-served locations (TSL, but we also call them TOD areas) to comply with "Pedestrian Street" standards has been relaxed for residential developments.
The requirement is that buildings subject to the standard had to have a minimum amount of transparency on the ground floor, but that doesn't work well for residential uses where there are dwelling units on the ground floor. The relevant standard is shown in the screenshot below.
This standard is not part of Chicago Cityscape's Zoning Assessment, so no changes to our platform have been made.
The technical change to the code is that any new construction in B, C, and D zoning districts must comply with the Pedestrian Street design standards in 17-3-0504 or 17-4-0504 (depending if the zoning district is B/C or D) except subsection (C), which is the standard displayed above.
In this Lunch Break Update, presented on January 25, 2023, we demonstrated four features: the "Standard 6-3", Super Parcel (analyzing multiple parcels as if they were one), new Property Finder filters, and Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) decisions.
First in the video, we discussed how to find information about the Connected Communities revision to the city's longtime transit-oriented development ordinance. The entire video is about 35 minutes long, but is divided into several chapters.
Use these timecodes to skip ahead to each chapter:
