What can you actually do with a piece of Chicago?
Zoning in plain words, how many homes the lot can take, whether you can run a short-term rental in that building, the tax and flood risk, for any spot in the city. Built from the City of Chicago's and Cook County's own records, the Zoning Ordinance and the Municipal Code.
- precincts where voters have barred new short-term rentals
- 126
- planned developments with homes, each read for what it permits
- 672
- of those that leave short-term rentals out
- 538
- acres of RS single-family zoning
- 59,693
Filters
What this shows that the city map does not
A short-term rental answer for the building, not a maybe. Chicago decides by zoning, by the size of the building and by a few City lists. Click a spot and we check all of them for that lot: whether its zoning permits shared housing units and vacation rentals, whether the building is on the Prohibited Buildings List, whether voters have restricted its precinct, how many homes the building has, and how many rentals the City already lists at the address. A house or a building of up to four homes can host one rental, in the host's own home; a building of five or more can rent a quarter of its homes, six at most, with no residence rule. Planned developments are read from their own ordinances, building by building where their subareas differ; in the rare case the public record cannot settle a building, the map says why rather than guessing.
Restricted precincts that are current. The City's published list of restricted precincts stopped in October 2024. We rebuilt it from the City Clerk's records, including the 126 precincts in force today after the September 23, 2026 votes, and only on the zoning the ban reaches (RS-1 to RM-5).
Planned developments, read. A planned development sets its own uses. We read the statement of permitted uses of each of the 672 planned developments that hold homes: where it does not list lodging, shared housing units and vacation rentals are not permitted, as the Zoning Administrator reads them. 538 of them leave rentals out. In 14 more, the subareas answer differently, so we placed each building in its subarea from the ordinance's own maps and letters.
Every tax on the bill. We take the parcel's own final assessed value, the 2025 state equalizer and the 2025 rate of its tax code, with or without the homeowner exemption.
How to use it
- Pick a ready-made view, or type what you want, for example "two-flats out of the floodplain in Logan Square".
- Click anywhere, or type a street address, to see the rules for that spot.
- Share a view by copying the link. It opens with the same view selected.
Limits, plainly
- This is a screening tool. It is not a survey, a zoning certification, a flood determination or a tax bill.
- Zoning lines are simplified for speed. Near a boundary, check the City's zoning map.
- Home counts are the code's lot-area ceilings; floor area, setbacks, parking and the planned development's own terms can lower them.
- The rental answer settles the building, not the person: a host must live in the unit 245 days a year where that rule applies, and a lease, condo or co-op rule can bar rentals on its own. The City's records do not show those.
- The count of homes in a building comes from the Assessor's records; for row houses we count the connected row-house lots, which is how the code counts a building.
- Tax estimates use 2025 rates and the latest final assessed value. Exemptions other than the homeowner exemption are not included.
Sources
Retrieved October 3, 2026 from the City of Chicago's data portal, the City Clerk's legislation records and Cook County's open data, with each lot's records read at your click. Provided as is. MapLedger is not affiliated with or approved by the City of Chicago or Cook County.
- Chicago zoning districts (dj47-wfun)
- Planned development ordinances (City of Chicago zoning PD files)
- Zoning Administrator letter on PD 1193 (how a PD's uses statement is read)
- Ward precincts, 2025 and 2013-2022 maps
- City Clerk legislation records (Restricted Residential Zones)
- House Share Prohibited Buildings List
- Active shared housing registrations (counts only)
- Business licenses, vacation rentals (counts only)
- Cook County parcels (lot size, class, tax code)
- Cook County Assessor: parcel universe, assessed values, characteristics
- Cook County Clerk, 2025 tax rates by tax code
- Cook County address points (address lookup)
- FEMA National Flood Hazard Layer
- Municipal Code of Chicago and Zoning Ordinance (American Legal)
Base map © OpenStreetMap contributors. Questions or a wrong answer? Tell us and we will fix it: hello@darkvectorcognition.ai.