Quote:
Originally Posted by west-town-brad
Zoning changes happen all the time. I'd guess thousands happen every year in this city. You can see the list that gets voted on by city council and it's pretty long every month.
You may be thinking of a Planned Development which is a negotiated zoning change between developers and the city for larger/more important projects.
Once a PD is in place it's harder (but not impossible) to change zoning within it.
I'd guess this tower sits within a PD, but the lot next to it may or may not be included.
Here's the ordinace that outlines all details of this PD plus all (yes zoning changes) to it since it was created: https://gisapps.cityofchicago.org/gi..._pds/PD499.pdf
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Actually PDs are no harder to change. It's the exact same process actually, it's just that getting a PD in the first place is a lot more work because you are essentially writing a custom zoning code for that parcel. In the case of a height increase that's very simple for an existing PD. All you would have to do is file for an amendment to the existing PD which is a document that let's you make minor changes to the PD without much debate. As with anything else in Chicago, if the alderman supports it then it's a shoo in.
The best example of this process is the LSE PD which has already been amended countless times to change heights and shift density around since it was first enacted. Most notably the Vista site required an amendment to the PD which allowed a building up to 1200' with it's current configuration of hotel and residential units.
Changing the allowed height for the Michigan and Roosevelt site would be no harder than changing the PD was for Vista to allow a 1200' building instead of 850' or whatever the limit was before. In fact, it would be literally the exact same process except they would likely not be requesting any shifts in density or unit count since they are already planning max density on that corner and almost none on the town homes site just South on the east side of Indiana. From that perspective the process would be simpler than what was required to make Vista a possibility.