Tag: ADU ordinance

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

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.

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.

ADUs in Chicago: it’s the 4-year anniversary of a 3-year pilot program

May 22, 2025 / / 0 Comments

My prepared remarks spoken to the Chicago City Council’s Committee on Zoning, Landmarks, and Building Standards on May 21, 2025.

Hi, my name is Steven Vance, I’m a 34th ward resident and a member of Abundant Housing Illinois, a group whose members show up to advocate for approving new housing. I wanted to speak today to support the expansion of the city’s ADU pilot program into a permanent and citywide option. 

This month is the four year anniversary of the beginning of a three-year ADU pilot program. 

A year ago, in June, just after the three year anniversary, the department of housing fulfilled their obligation and presented their findings and recommendations. They recommended to expand it citywide. 

Two years ago, a year before the department’s recommendations, newly elected Alderprerson Lawson introduced an ordinance that would do just that. To my recollection, the zoning committee has substantially discussed that ordinance only once. 

During the last four years, nearly 400 ADU homes have been permitted by the Department of buildings, and hundreds of those homes have been built. Homeowners and other property owners have been able to build homes for their parents, friends, and as rental units to earn more household income. None of the ADUs are allowed to be used for Airbnb or other short term rentals. 

Chicago was recently recognized as a national leader…in rent increases. Allowing more homes, including in the form of accessory dwelling units, is a way to suppress the rate at which rents rise. In some cases, including this year in Austin, Texas, Minneapolis, and Denver, so many new homes were built that rents started falling. 

I urge the zoning committee to adopt an ordinance to allow ADUs citywide. Thank you. 

Brian and his wife built a coach house in 2023, pursuant to the ADU pilot program, so their newborn child’s grandma could live close to home and help babysit.

Many of Chicago’s bungalows were built with basement ADUs

August 6, 2024 / / 1 Comment

It’s easy to check: is there a ground-level door on the side gangway, or at the rear?

  • Walk up and down the streets of Vittum Park and Archer Heights and you’ll see dozens of houses with gangway doors.
  • Over in Portage Park a bungalow in the 45th Ward has a door at the front corner, a couple of steps down.
Portage Park bungalow with a basement ADU entrance at the front corner

Back in 2018 I wrote about whether “lock off apartments” like these would be allowed by the Chicago zoning code. This was before I realized that so many bungalows have these; they’re so inconspicuous that they’re easy to miss.

Did you know that the city has 14 bungalow districts on the National Register of Historic Places? All but one would be severely affected by the proposed ADU expansion ordinance that would require homeowners to obtain a special use from the Zoning Board of Appeals in order to permit an existing ADU so someone can legally continue living in a separate household, or to permit the build out of a new ADU. That’s because most – if not all, but I didn’t check each one – of the land is zoned RS-1 and RS-2.

Google Street View images show six selected bungalows in Archer Heights that have side doors to basements. The status of each (whether they are separate households or shared with the household on the first floor) is unknown. Legally, however, most homeowners would not be able to rent out a basement unit because of zoning code restrictions here that the ADU ordinance could change. Thank you to Danny Villalobos for finding these; Danny is a fellow member of Urban Environmentalists Illinois, which has this petition gathering support for expanding the ADU ordinance citywide.

Only the homeowners in the Falconer Bungalow Historic District in Belmont Cragin would be exempt from that requirement in the proposed ADU expansion ordinance because none of the bungalows are zoned RS-1 or RS-2.

In a recent blog post I quantified how many small-scale residential properties would be affected by the RS-1/2 “carve out”. In this post I’m discussing those same kinds of properties but in the 13 bungalow historic districts that would be affected.

A list of 13 of the 14 historic bungalow districts in Chicago and the number of small-scale residential properties that are in RS-1 and RS-2 zoning districts that would have to obtain a special use from the Zoning Board of Appeals in order to have an ADU if the current version of the proposed ADU expansion ordinance would be adopted.

The sizable impact of requiring Chicago homeowners to get special use approval to build an ADU

July 20, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Show your support for a version of the proposed ordinance that enables equal access to ADUs in all residential zoning districts and does not have the carve out explained below by emailing your alderperson and asking that they support ADU expansion into every residential zoning district without special use approval (reference ordinance SO2024-0008918, and then sign this Urban Environmentalists Illinois petition). I spoke about this issue with Mike Stephen on Outside The Loop radio on July 27, 2024 (skip to 6 minutes).

It’s possible that the Chicago City Council votes to approve an ADU expansion ordinance that would require about 38 percent of small-scale residential property owners, specifically in RS-1 and RS-2 zoning districts, to obtain a special use from the Zoning Board of Appeals to build an ADU. Special use approval is intended for limited and certain businesses and building types that can have an adverse impact and may require mitigations that are reviewed and approved by the ZBA.

ADUs have not been demonstrated to have adverse impacts and this potential future requirement would impose burdens on a scale above and beyond anything else the Chicago zoning code imposes. A special use is described in the city’s code as having “widely varying land use and operational characteristics [and] require case-by-case review in order to determine whether they will be compatible with surrounding uses and development patterns. Case-by-case review is intended to ensure consideration of the special use’s anticipated land use, site design and operational impacts.”

Yet an ADU is a residential use; its operational characteristics could not be incompatible with other residential uses. This requirement would be extremely unusual and especially burdensome. There is only one other special use approval that a residential property owner would have to seek, which is to allow housing on the ground floor in B1, B3, C1, and C2 zoning districts.

Applying for a special use for a small home presents a major obligation to the property owner, and requires them to perform the following:

  • Submitting a full building permit application with plans and obtaining a “certificate of zoning denial” before being able to start this process.
  • Paying a $1,000 application fee to the City of Chicago.
  • Hiring an expert witness to write a report and provide testimony at the ZBA hearing.
  • Preparing the finding of fact, a report which (a) describes how the ADU complies with all applicable standards of the Chicago Zoning Ordinance, (b) says that the ADU is in the interest of the public convenience and will not have a significant adverse impact on the general welfare of the neighborhood, (c) explains that the ADU is compatible with the character of the surrounding area in terms of site planning and building scale and project design, (d) states that the ADU is compatible with the character of the surrounding area in terms of operating characteristics, such as hours of operation, outdoor lighting, noise and traffic generation, and (e) outlines that the ADU is designed to promote pedestrian safety and comfort.
  • Preparing the application (which is extensive).
  • Complying with onerous legal notification requirements including determining property owners of record within 250 feet of the subject property, paying for and posting public notice signs and ensuring they remain posted until the public hearing, and mailing notice letters to surrounding property owners within the 250 feet notice radius.
  • Presenting the project to the Zoning Board of Appeals at an undeterminable time during an 8-12 hour meeting in the middle of a Friday, possibly facing one’s neighbors who are present objecting to the project.

Not to mention, this will gum up staff time and expertise.

Scale of impact

I analyzed the number of small-scale residential-only properties in Chicago that would and would not be subject to the special use approval requirement in RS-1 and RS-2 zoning districts if that version were to pass.

The map below shows where the proposed ADU expansion would set a different standard for homeowners in RS-1 and RS-2 zoning districts than for homeowners in all other zoning districts. It covers large parts of 40 percent of the city’s 77 community areas (read more about my thoughts on this in my letter to the Chicago Sun-Times editor).

The table below shows the results of my analysis: the owners of nearly 171,000 small-scale residential properties in RS-1/2 zoning districts would be required to undergo a costly and difficult process that would likely result in burdens so great that very few families would actually be able to take advantage of having an ADU.

About the analysis

“Small-scale residential” comprises Cook County property classifications that represent detached houses, townhouses and townhouses, two-to-six flats, courtyard buildings, and small multifamily buildings, up to 99,999 s.f. with or without commercial space up to 35 percent of the rentable square feet.

The full list of property classifications:

  • 2-02
  • 2-03
  • 2-04
  • 2-05
  • 2-06
  • 2-07
  • 2-08
  • 2-09
  • 2-10
  • 2-11
  • 2-12
  • 2-13
  • 2-25
  • 2-34
  • 2-78
  • 2-95
  • 3-13
  • 3-14
  • 3-15
  • 3-18
  • 3-91