Category: Urban Planning

ADU vote, 46-0

City Council finally passes a permanent ADU law

October 1, 2025 / / 0 Comments

The ADU pilot program the City Council passed in December 2020 and took effect on May 1, 2021, will finally convert to a permanent law on April 1, 2026 – just shy of five years old. The new policy will increase the permanent eligibility area by a little more than double what the pilot areas allowed (a 135 percent expansion to be more precise). Further expansions are optional and up to each alderperson to decide when and where to “opt in” additional parts of their wards. Additionally, the construction of coach houses will have to comply with unusual labor requirements tacked on by an alderperson who called ADUs “an attack on the working class”.

I was shocked when the ADU ordinance (read it here) passed unanimously, 46-0. The ordinance number is SO2024-0008918, and when you open the legislation details page look for the filename called “SO2024-0008918 ADU 9.23.25 (LRB 10a) (2) (1).pdf”

How do I feel? I’m relieved this seven-year-period of ADU advocacy is over, and I’m disappointed in the outcome. More advocacy will be needed to ensure that most alders maximize the eligibility areas in their wards.

Highlights of the new ADU ordinance

  • the ADU eligibility area increases from 12 percent of the city to 29 percent of the city, with options to increase further
  • the arbitrary cap of 700 s.f. of floor area allowed in each coach house has been removed (there is still a site-specific cap)
  • existing off-street parking can be removed in order to build a coach house on the ground level
  • B (business) and C (also business) zoning districts are now part of the eligibility area
  • ground floor space in mixed-use buildings in B and C zoning districts can be converted to ADUs without having to get a “special use”

I wrote an ADU FAQ for Abundant Housing Illinois.

Media coverage of the passage

All of these articles include quotes from me:

a collage of photos of a coach house ADU in Lakeview with the text "yes to ADUs citywide"

This is the month we get ADUs legalized citywide

September 2, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Update: City Council adopted a 135% expansion of the ADUs eligibility area with options to go citywide, on September 25, 2025.

Abundant Housing Illinois has put together a bunch of pro-ADU events this month – two of our own, one with a partner, and one is a City Council meeting – in anticipation of the vote on September 25, 2025.

The house tour is a 3-block away from the Cottage Grove ‘L’ station in Woodlawn, and the address will be provided after you RSVP.

Finally, our ADU petition. We’re trying to collect 500 more signatures to deliver to City Council.

Alderperson Burnett on the dais at City Council Chambers
Alderperson Burnett on the dais at City Council Chambers

ADUs passes the Chicago zoning committee, City Council comes next

July 15, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Update 1: Alderpersons Quinn and Mitchell “deferred and published” the ADU ordinance on Wednesday, July 16, 2025, which means it was not voted on and must be taken up again at a future City Council meeting.

Update 2: Help get the ordinance over the finish line on September 25, 2025. I made a list of events and actions and everyone can contribute something.

The Chicago City Council zoning committee voted to approve citywide accessory dwelling units (ADUs). I was sick this morning and late to the meeting so I couldn’t sign up for the public comment roster. My planned comment is at the end of this post.

The most substantial change from the last proposal (circa May 2024) is that ADUs will be allowed in residential buildings in all zoning districts subject to the following caps:

  • RS-1: one ADU permit per block (both sides of the street) per year
  • RS-2: two…
  • R3-3: three…
  • Other zoning districts: no cap

There is also an owner occupancy requirement, to be proved at the time of permit application, to build an ADU in the RS zoning districts. The version text that passed is not yet available online, but it will be posted under ordinance SO2024-0008918.

Read WTTW’s report on what alderpersons said about ADUs, including the despicable comments about migrants by one of them.

The full City Council will vote on this ordinance tomorrow; I think it will pass by one or two votes. The lists below shows how committee members voted, approving it 13 to 7 (with all zoning committee members present).

Yes on ADUs:

  • La Spata
  • Hall
  • Ramirez
  • Sigcho-Lopez
  • Fuentes
  • Burnett
  • Cruz
  • Conway
  • Quezada
  • Villegas
  • Knudsen
  • Clay
  • Lawson

No on ADUs:

  • Hopkins
  • Dowell
  • Harris
  • Beale
  • Moore
  • Mosley
  • Reilly

Public comment

Hi my name is Steven Vance. I live in the 34th Ward and I’m a volunteer member of Abundant Housing Illinois. Today is a test for the Committee on Zoning. Alderperson Lawson and Mayor Johnson have presented a new version of allowing accessory dwelling units, including coach houses and other types of ADUs, for your favorable vote.  The test is whether this body will recognize the mounting evidence of a housing crisis in Chicago and adopt ordinances that will more quickly chip away at the housing shortage.

The most glaring problem, measured by national researchers, is that Chicago’s rents are climbing faster than in any of the other top 50 metropolitan areas, and for sale inventory is so low that houses sell in days at prices tens of thousands of dollars over asking. “Sounds good” for the individual owners and sellers, respectively, but it’s bad for everyone else. 

The city’s housing department staff know what is known nationally: that ADUs are one of the most sensible and impactful ways to increase housing options and reduce rents. With the ADU ordinance before you today Chicago would join Los Angeles, New York City, Boston, and Austin, cities where ADUs have been legal since before the pilot began. 

To those alders who sometimes or often disagree with Mayor Johnson’s agenda, consider that allowing ADUs across Chicago was first proposed by Mayor Emanuel in his administration’s final five-year housing plan back in 2019, and that it was during Mayor Lightfoot’s administration that the council started the three-year pilot program. 

To those who worry that ADUs bring in more children to the neighborhood who might crowd schools, consider that across the city enrollment in public schools is declining and more families and children staying in the city would be a blessing. Mayor Johnson’s amendment considered this by capping the number of ADUs that can be built on each block. 

I’m given two minutes so I can’t address every concern, but this committee has had plenty of time to address the concern of Chicagoans: the Chicagoans whose rents are rising too fast for them to afford, and who are having to move every year in search of a cheaper place away from their friends, family, and jobs. The ADU pilot program has brought 100s of new homes online in the last four years without any subsidy from the city. More ADUs means more homes for families to care for someone else: a grandparent staying nearby to care for a newborn, an adult child starting a new family near their parents, and seniors who would age in place by downsizing into a smaller home on their own property or down the street. Vote yes and pass the test. 

A row of bungalow houses in Portage Park, some of which have basement ADUs (the legal status for each isn't known)
A row of bungalow houses in Portage Park, some of which have basement ADUs (the legal status for each isn't known)

Allowing ADUs across Chicago: it’s never been more real

July 12, 2025 / / 0 Comments

tl;dr: sign the petition so I can send the zoning committee the biggest marker of citywide support for citywide ADUs, and then call your alderperson on Monday to ask them how they plan to vote

Mayor Johnson indicated earlier this week that he is interested in legalizing ADUs citywide next week. Fran Spielman reported in the Chicago Sun-Times that he remains steadfast in ensuring that the option is available in all residential parts of the city. To that effect, he plans to submit a substitute ordinance at the next zoning committee meeting on Tuesday, July 15. 

ADUs were re-legalized in Chicago starting on May 1, 2021, in a pilot program available to property owners in five areas of the city. The pilot program turned four years old two months ago.

An ordinance introduced by Alderperson Lawson (44th Ward) over two years ago would dissolve the pilot areas and allow ADUs across the city and make other program fixes. However, the proposed ordinance requires that property owners in certain zoning districts obtain permission from the Zoning Board of Appeals before being able to apply for an ADU building permit.

While Lawson has argued that the votes have existed to pass his version, the mayor’s position is that that difference in treatment based on a property’s zoning district, which alderpersons can change, could continue the problem that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) found in October 2023.

I think that the mayor’s forthcoming ordinance is likely, like Lawson’s ordinance, to allow ADUs in all zoning districts (including existing residential buildings improperly zoned into M districts), allow both a coach house and an interior ADU on the same property, and allow existing parking to be removed so ground-level accessible coach houses can be built. In addition, I think it’s possible that the mayor’s version could keep some of the pilot program’s owner occupancy and maximum ADUs per block standards to ensure political feasibility in City Council.

After nearly eight years of ADU advocacy – participating in a task force during a previous mayor’s administration, presenting on panels, sharing ADU data with journalists and the public, and garnering support for a geographic expansion of ADUs in the city and Illinois – my primary interest is honing in to ensure that an ordinance legalizing ADUs across the whole of Chicago passes.

Take action: I’d like for every reader to sign this petition, created by Abundant Housing Illinois, to show the zoning committee and City Council that there is widespread support for ADUs.

Contacting your alderperson directly on Monday would be a bonus.

Rendering of a single-family house but which has a "junior ADU" in the front half of the first floor

Greenline Homes is building brand new houses with junior ADUs

June 22, 2025 / / 0 Comments

There’s an upcoming tour for a house like the one described in this post. RSVP for the tour on Tuesday, September 23, 2025.

Greenline Homes builds all-electric 1, 2, and 3 unit houses in Chicago’s South Side, and this year they’ve started building single-family houses with a “junior accessory dwelling unit” on the first floor. An accessory dwelling unit, or ADU, can mean a few things, but generally it means a smaller home within a house that has one or more dwelling units. In Chicago, this is most commonly done by adding an apartment in a basement space of a single-family house or a two-flat, and on the ground floor of an older courtyard building during a renovation that moves shared laundry from the ground floor to in-unit.

Over in Woodlawn, however, Greenline Homes has built what appears as a single-family house but has an apartment with one bedroom and one bathroom in the front half of the first floor. It occupies about one quarter of the houses’s overall floor area. In the rear half of the first floor is the primary unit’s kitchen, living and dining room, and a half bathroom. Upstairs, the space belongs all to the primary unit and has three bedrooms and two bathrooms.

Many Greenline Homes have previously been built as two-flats with a lower level full-floor apartment and an upper level duplexed apartment for the owner. The intention is that buyers have an immediate rental income opportunity, or a place for multigenerational living. Think having an adult child living nearby (on-site!) as they transition from college graduation to full time job or having their first child.

Floor plan for the house at 6537 S Rhodes Ave (view the sale listing on Redfin).

The house is for sale, and there are several others like it, so if you’d like a tour contact Wayne Beals. Here are similar ones under construction that will deliver this year:

Further reading: junior ADUs can also be lockoff units, where the smaller unit is connected to the primary unit via stairs or a locked door, but maintains its only exit to the outside.