Tag: Chicago

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.

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

How much vacant housing is there in Chicago?

January 1, 2024 / / 0 Comments

How many houses, buildings, units, and lots are vacant in Chicago depends on how you measure them. I’m aware of at least five ways to measure housing vacancy, using publicly available data, each with varying degrees of accuracy and coverage.

Each measurement method has its own TAKEAWAY so you can quickly scan to see how many units are potentially vacant. The bottom line, I believe, is that the vacancy rate in Chicago is quite low and vacant units is not a viable and scalable source for the additional housing that Chicago needs. However, I am compelled to add that it’s unclear how many additional homes Chicago needs because there are no analyses that uncover the shortfall or recommend a goal production number.

1. Vacant units, per Census bureau

The US Census Bureau says there are 1,258,704 dwelling units in Chicago, and that 10.2% of them are vacant (128,796 units). The Census bureau has two types of vacant, which generally break down into “listed for rent or for sale and temporarily unoccupied” and “all other reasons”. This data comes from American Community Survey (ACS) 5-year survey.

The Census says 37.3% of Chicago’s vacant units are “temporarily unoccupied” (38,450 units) and 62.7% are vacant for “other reasons” (64,589 units). This data comes from ACS 1-year data, which has larger margins of error than the 5-year survey data. The “other reasons” are what I am calling “truly vacant”.

The most common survey response within “other reasons” is that the unit is currently being renovated or repaired (20.2%). Additional top “other reasons” are:

  • Currently being renovated/repaired: 20.2%
  • Personal/family reasons: 15.6%
  • Needs repairs: 14.6%
  • Preparing to rent/sell: 13.1%
  • Abandoned/possibly condemned: 10.1%

Up For Growth, a national policy organization, has assessed that Chicagoland has an underproduction of 129,218 homes (using 2019 data), and about 3.3 percent of the existing housing stock in the region. Assuming that 80 percent of this underproduction is “assigned” to the City of Chicago, then this underproduction represents about 1.6 times the number of vacant units (vacant for any reason in the Census Bureau’s survey) that likely exist in Chicago.

TAKEAWAY from #1: Fewer than all 64,589 units are “truly” vacant, however. About 21,508 of those units are purportedly being renovated or repaired and will be rented or sold soon.

A large number of the remaining 43,081 “truly” vacant units are unlikely to join the rental or sale market soon. Assuming that all of these 43,081 vacant units are rented or sold then Chicago, using that 80 percent assignment of the 129,218 underproduction, would still have an underproduction of 60,294 homes.

2. Vacant units, per Chicago’s Vacant Building Registry

From a February 2023 snapshot of the Chicago Vacant Building Registry, which requires landlords to register buildings as vacant once they are vacant for more than 30 days, there were 6,521 dwelling units that were reported by owners as vacant. Comparing this to the above Census bureau figure that nearly 65,000 units are truly vacant, this would mean that 90% of vacant units are not registered in the VBR. 

The reasons for vacancy were not included in the VBR data I received from the city. Also, these units are likely already included in the Census figure above and not in addition to.

TAKEAWAY from #2: There are at least 6,500 vacant dwelling units in Chicago. 

3. Buildings reported as vacant to 311

Chicagoans can report to 311 that they suspect a building to be vacant. There is no link to building violation citations or feedback on these reports as to whether the suspicion was founded by a city worker.

Notice how the number of reports dropped by about half from 2022 to 2023. I don’t know if there are fewer suspected buildings to be reported, fewer people are reporting buildings, or there are barriers to reporting and collecting the reports.

TAKEAWAY from #3: This data is probably not reliable to understand the number of vacant buildings in Chicago.

4. Buildings cited as needing to be registered in the Vacant Building Registry

In 2023, Chicago Department of Buildings inspectors cited 24 buildings with a violation for not being registered in the Vacant Building Registry.

TAKEAWAY from #4: If about 90% of vacant units are not registered then there are drastically few citations being issued to force registration.

5. Vacant lots, per Cook County Assessor Office

The CCAO classifies nearly every property in Cook County. The classification 1-00 represents vacant lots. At present there are 32,207 vacant lots in Chicago. 22,645 of these (70.3%) are in “R” zoning districts and allow only residential uses. Another 4,566 lots (14.2%) are in “B” and “C” neighborhood mixed-use zoning districts. 

TAKEAWAY from #5: Tens of thousands of new construction homes could be built on vacant lots.

Addendum: In its Chicago monthly market update for the multifamily housing sector, Colliers brokerage reported that the Chicago MSA “has a vacancy rate of 5.3%, which is below the national rate of 7.6%”.

Zoning 101: Business live/work units

April 14, 2023 / / 0 Comments

This is the first post in what might become a video series about the Chicago zoning code. I picked business live/work unit because they’re a rarely seen “use” (an establishment) in Chicago, likely in part due to how few buildings are zoned to allow them and that the rules setting their minimum size might make eligible spaces doubly harder to find.

There is no order! An authentic “Zoning 101” would probably start by describing zoning, but I’m assuming you know that Chicago has a zoning code that defines what can and cannot be built or practiced on every property in the city. Business live/work units are one of those many things the code defines and regulates.

A business live/work unit is distinguished from an artist live/work unit in the Chicago zoning code in that it allows more business types – i.e. more than the creation or practice of art is allowed – but it requires that they happen on the ground floor. Artist live/work units are allowed in more zoning districts as of right (no additional permission necessary) above the ground floor.

What do you want to learn about next? Leave a comment or @ me on Twitter (stevevance).

Links to the relevant parts of the Chicago zoning code:

Update: Three more podcasts I started listening to

April 7, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Last November I admitted I started listening to podcasts and I shared my list of two essential and two extra urbanism podcasts. Since then I’ve added three more podcasts to my rotation.

a photo of University Center in the South Loop, behind a Green Line elevated train that's headed north.
Chicago urbanist. High-rise student housing and conference center, a 131-year-old elevated transit line (although running over the Harrison Curve track that was built in 2003 to replace two 90-degree turns), and an undeveloped surface parking lot.

(Links go to Apple Podcasts.)

City Dweller

Listen to the episodes where they interview my friend Eric Allix Rogers about what he appreciates in Chicago, and my sometimes conspirator Emily Talen (also an urban geography professor at University of Chicago). Other Chicagoans, Natalie Moore and Mary Wisniewski, have also been interviewed. Episodes are short!

Odd Lots

This is one of Bloomberg media’s podcasts, with hosts Tracy Alloway and Joe Weisenthal. I mostly appreciate the episodes where they explain financial topics I still have a hard time understanding, and I really liked the recent episode where they interviewed Saule Omarova to talk about the FDIC and the Federal Reserve.

Tracy and Joe also interviewed Stephen Smith and Bobby Fijan to talk about apartment building designs, unit layouts, and why the double-loaded corridor is fine for hotels but not fine building apartments for families.

The War on Cars

This should have gone in my previous post because this is another urbanism podcast. The title is a pretty good summary and the three hosts – Sarah Goodyear, Aaron Naparstek, who cofounded Streetsblog, and Doug Gordon – discuss the many, many ways that cars ruin cities.

A kludge to build a rental registry in Cook County 

April 4, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Chicago should have a rental registry, a database of dwelling units that are rented to tenants, for at least two reasons:

  1. The city can know things about the rental units, including how much they cost, where they are, and if any are vacant and could be occupied if only people knew they were available and how to get in touch with the owner.
  2. The city can know who the owners are and contact them to issue citations or advise them, or fill out for them, emergency rental assistance during pandemics and other times of necessity.

Building and administering a rental registry from scratch would be very expensive – probably tens of millions to start and more than one million annually.

I propose a kludge that uses existing databases and modifies existing standard operating procedures amongst a small group of Cook County and Chicago agencies. A kludge is a workaround. It has other meanings and an uncertain etymology.

An ideal rental registry helps solve at least four problems:

  1. Identify who owns a rental home
  2. The number of rental units are in a building
  3. Rental price
  4. Rental unit availability [see my other blog post about counting vacant units]
A 9-unit apartment building in Little Italy is undergoing renovation.

The kludge has four parts

1. Incorporate data about the number of units declared on Real Estate Transfer Tax forms (which in Cook and many other counties are transmitted to the Illinois Department of Revenue digitally).

There is already a city office that reviews or audits these forms looking for instances where the buyer or seller incorrectly claimed certain exemptions from RETT, because of how the city can lose revenue. That office can also enforce that the number of units was correctly entered on the form. 

2. For banks that hold city deposits, amend legislation to require that their newly issued or refinanced mortgages specify the number of units in the required submitted documentation. The ordinance that regulates banks that hold city deposits was amended a few years ago to require that they report how many loans they issue in Chicago for both commercial and residential properties.

Databases 1 and 2 are checks for each other. 

3. “Hire” the Cook County Assessor’s Office to create and operate the database for the unit count data from 1 and 2 (likely as an augmentation of their existing database).

The database would also store any data the CCAO collects through the commercial valuation data they obtain from third party sources as well as from the owners who volunteer it (Assessor Kaegi is already collecting and publicly publishing this information). 

At this point, with features 1, 2, and 3, we are assembling a pretty broad but incomplete record of where rental units are. It will be come more complete over time as properties transfer (sell) and the details of the transfer (sale), and the properties themselves, are recorded.

It doesn’t have a clue as to the rental prices. 

4. The Cook County Assessor’s Office creates new property classifications. Property classifications allow for the comparison of like buildings for the purpose of establishing assessed values for all properties that are not tax exempt.

One of the most common classifications in Chicago is “2-11”, for apartment buildings with two to six units. This means that, generally, the value of the ubiquitous two-flats and three-flats get compared to other each other and sometimes to four-flats, etc.

I suggest that there should be a few new property classifications, but I have only one idea so far: classify limited equity and Chicago Housing Trust properties differently. 

Bickerdike is one organization that built a lot of limited equity row houses and detached houses in the 1990s and 2000s but I am not aware of a publicly accessible database identifying them.

These houses represent permanently affordable housing and we should have a better system to track them!

This screenshot of part of a spreadsheet is the apartments data that the Cook County Assessor’s Office collected for the 2021 tax year. 

How broad is the kludge?

  • Using the Real Estate Transfer Tax data from 2022 Q1 to Q3, there were 3,550 buildings in Chicago having 22,217 units transferred. (I don’t know how many were arms length transactions, meaning they were sold to new owners.)
  • In the CCAO’s apartments data collected for the Rogers Park Township, there is semi-detailed information about 715 buildings that have seven or more apartments comprising 18,541 units. Details include the unit size breakdown by bedroom count.

Chicago has 556,099 rented dwelling units in buildings with two or more units (according to the ACS 2021 1-year estimate). In my limited analysis I’ve already found data about 7.4 percent of them, and that’s only for part of the city [1].

Notes, limitations, and updates

[1] There may also be duplicates between the buildings in the RETT database and the CCAO apartments dataset.

These databases would not have information about detached (“single family”), single-unit semi-detached (rowhouses and townhouses), and condos used as rentals. This severely limits the coverage of information. As it stands, Chicago Cityscape has data coverage of unit count information for about 37 percent of multi-family (apartment) buildings.

5th Ward Alderperson Desmond Yancy proposed an ordinance that would establish a rental registry (O2023-0004085). The rationale for such is shown in the screenshot below. (Go directly to the ordinance’s PDF.)

Screenshot of the proposed rental registry benefits.