Zoning Resources
Zoning, explained
Plain-language guides to the rules that decide what can be built on a lot. The concepts appear in most American zoning codes; the worked examples use Chicago’s ordinance, and each guide notes where other cities define or measure things differently.
Zoning fundamentals
Zoning fundamentals
Always check your own city’s definitions before relying on a number: the same term can be measured differently from one code to the next.
-
Explainer
Floor area ratio (FAR)
How much building a lot can hold, how to calculate it, and why it is often not the limit that binds.
-
Explainer
Setbacks & yards
Front, side and rear setbacks: how they are measured, averaged, and what may stick out into them.
-
Explainer
Building height
Where height is measured from and to, why flat and pitched roofs differ, and what may rise above the limit.
-
Explainer
Density: how many units fit
Minimum lot area per unit, why the answer rounds down, and the exemptions that add a unit.
-
Explainer
Corner, through & reversed corner lots
Which line is the front, where the rear yard goes, and the extra setback a reversed corner lot owes.
-
Explainer
Parking minimums
The one rule that makes you build something: what triggers it, what a stall costs in land, and every way the number comes down.
-
Explainer
Nonconforming uses & buildings
What “grandfathered” really means: what may continue, what may be enlarged, and the clocks that end the right.
Chicago Guides
Working in Chicago?
The Zoning Field Guide, the full zoning code, and guides to rules that only exist in Chicago, like coach houses and zoning variations.
For a real address
Put it together for a real parcel
LotGrade applies these rules at once to any Chicago address and shows what can be built.