Zoning
Of the zoning changes the City Council passed in 2025 for buildings with homes, 34% had a building permit within a year.
Permits through Nov. 13 · zoning votes through Oct. 14 · updated every morning
What followed each year’s votes
Zoning changes the City Council passed whose application gives a number of homes, by the year they passed: the share with a building permit for new homes on the rezoned site within 12 and 24 months. Our copies of the applications start in 2021. Updated every morning.
| Year passed | Zoning changes with homes | Permit within 12 months | Within 24 months | Homes planned | Homes permitted so far | Of those, finished |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 100 | 24% | 32% | 2,075 | 565 | 441 |
| 2022 | 121 | 13% | 21% | 1,762 | 527 | 438 |
| 2023 | 90 | 12% | 24% | 1,840 | 302 | 183 |
| 2024 | 109 | 27% | 34% | 2,787 | 995 | 181 |
| 2025 | 143 | 34% | too early to tell | 3,540 | 742 | 27 |
| 2026 | 114 | too early to tell | too early to tell | 2,608 | 99 | 0 |
This Council term, since May 15, 2023
1,123 zoning changes, sorted by what the new zoning allows on the lot.
370 more aren’t sorted yet because the before-and-after zoning couldn’t be read from the paperwork. “More homes per lot” compares what the zoning allows, not what was proposed.
Newest approvals
Passed by the City Council on Oct. 14, 2026.
Room to grow under today’s zoning
Today’s zoning allows about 110,000 more homes on empty private lots outside downtown. Nearly everything else it allows would mean replacing a building.
This counts homes per lot only. Height limits, parking rules and what is worth building all cut the real number, and at the pace lots are actually built on, most of this room stays unused.
On paper, zoning outside downtown allows about 484,000 more homes
Where they would go:
Only the first group could be built without replacing or adding to a building that stands there now.
Room on empty lots, by ward
Homes today’s zoning allows on empty private lots.
Tap or point at a ward to see its numbers.
Most room
Least room
Ward 42 shows no empty-lot room because nearly all of it is downtown zoning, which is counted apart.
Downtown is counted apart, and roughly
Downtown zoning limits floor area, not homes per lot. Unused floor area there works out to somewhere between 46,000 and 80,000 more homes at 900 sq ft each. Building heights and lot sizes are missing for hundreds of downtown lots, so this is a rough range and those lots are left out.
The city has no target for how fast a rezoning turns into homes
Its Cut the Tape initiative, begun in 2024, is the program meant to speed approvals and permits. It reports steps taken, not a number to hit. Cut the Tape ›
A zoning change is the Council changing what can be built on a lot. Why “at least” in the first figure: the zoning map keeps only the latest change on each site, so earlier ones are lost and the true share is higher; that figure and the 56% come from our Nov. 9, 2026 analysis of permits 2014–2025. The table counts zoning changes since 2021 whose application gives a number of homes. A permit counts if it is for new homes inside the area the change rezoned (from the city’s zoning map, matched by ordinance number), or on the same street within 8 house numbers of the rezoned address on the same side, on or after the vote. A year shows a share only once at least half its zoning changes are 12 (or 24) months old; the share counts only those. Room to grow: For each lot: the homes its zoning district allows (lot size ÷ the district’s minimum lot area per home) minus the homes there now. Lot sizes are the Cook County Assessor’s; 51,854 of the 110,000 are on lots with a measured size and the rest assume a standard 3,125 sq ft lot. City-owned and other tax-exempt land, railroads, planned developments, manufacturing districts and parks are left out. Two-flats that an exception allows in some single-family districts are counted as over.
Sources: City Clerk legislation records and zoning applications; City of Chicago building permits; ward records on this site. Chicago zoning map; Chicago Zoning Ordinance §17-2-0303 and downtown floor-area rules; Cook County Assessor parcels and characteristics; City of Chicago building footprints.