A Chicago Cityscape member emailed me to ask why a property wasn’t showing as TOD-eligible when it, indeed, had the appropriate zoning district class and was proximal enough to a CTA or Metra station. “TOD” is a status and a law in Chicago that gives property developers certain relief and entitlement bonuses in order to create transit-oriented development.
Chicago Cityscape has the most comprehensive overview of any Chicago property’s TOD status, explaining why it does or doesn’t get the status. That Cityscape was displaying an erroneous TOD status turned out to be a bug we needed to fix.
Essentially, being near transit reduces the required car parking minimum from usually 1 space for each unit to zero spaces altogether, and, in some zoning district classes, a building can have a greater density of units.
With this change in the city’s code in 2013 and 2015, more people and fewer cars will be housed near train stations. (And it’s working. There are over 30 developments using this law in less than two years.)
Fixing the bug turned out to be an opportunity to improve how TOD information is communicated, because all parcels in B, C, D, and M zones near rail transit stations are eligible for parking minimum relief — a very different entitlement than the density bonus.
Now, a label at the top of the Address Snapshot pages quickly communicates which kind of TOD relief or bonus the address or parcel is eligible for.
We’ve also rearranged the TOD details section of the same page to explain that the property is eligible for the relief or bonus and not required to take advantage of them.
