Design Guidelines
The Department of Planning and Development (DPD) is engaged in a number of efforts to formalize the City's commitment to a high-quality built enviornment, highlighted in the Design Excellence Guilding Principles, that celebrates and enhances Chicago's unique architectural and urban design legacy.
To launch this iniatitve, DPD engaged a Design Excellence Working Group to answer this question:
How do we engender a culture that values design excellence in everyday life?
From this question, several thematic principles emerged that collectively aspire to achieve design excellence for Chicago residents, businesses and other local stakeholders. These include:
Achieving fair treatment, targeted support, and prosperity for all citizens.
Implementing creative approaches to design and problem-solving.
Celebrating and strengthening the culture of local communities.
Committing to environmental, cultural, and financial longevity.
Fostering design appreciation and responding to community needs.
Neighborhood Design Guidelines
Developed by DPD under Mayor Lightfoot and adopted by Plan Commission in March 2022, the Neighborhood Design Guidelines provide specific recommendations to enhance the planning, review and impact of development along the city’s commercial corridors.
As a complement to other City design resources and regulations, the guidelines are adaptable to the unique context of individual neighborhoods, corridors and blocks.
The guidelines are organized across six categories:
Features that have long-term environmental, sociocultural and human health impacts.
Targeted uses that complement a property’s surrounding context.
Building orientation, layout, open space, parking, and services.
Improvements within and near the public right-of-way adjacent to the site.
Bulk, height, and form of a building.
Architectural expression of a building’s exterior, including entrances and windows.
Adopted in 2017, the West Loop Design Guidelines add to previous planning efforts to ensure that the West Loop continues to build on the central area characteristics as an employment, transportation, cultural and residential center for the city.
First adopted in 2005 and updated in 2019, the Chicago River Corridor Design Guidelines outline the requirements for development in and adjacent to the setback area along the Chicago River and its branches within the city limits.
Adopted in 2004, the Calumet Design Guidelines depart from the city's traditional landscape ordinance by establishing unique landscape standards that help economic deveopment projects blend with the rare wetland features on Chicago's Far South Side.
The guidelines are intended to be used for all public and private projects located along Chicago’s commercial corridors. Projects that require the City’s review and oversight should substantially correspond to their parameters, especially Planned Developments, Lakefront Protection Ordinance projects, and projects that receive City grants, funding or other incentives.
DPD is seeking feedback from property owners, developers, designers and community members to continue to refine the guidelines’ scope and content. Comments may be directed to DPD@cityofchicago.org.