The Shape Oak Park proposal consolidates 21 zoning districts into 13 and legalizes middle housing across most of the village. Type an address to see exactly how the rules would change for that property — today's zoning, the proposed district, and what becomes possible.
What's Changing
Oak Park's current code sorts land into a patchwork of single-family, two-family, and multi-family residential districts plus commercial zones. Shape Oak Park replaces that with something much simpler — Neighborhood 1-3 and Mixed-use 1-3 — and permits small multi-unit buildings by right in places that are single-family-only today.
The TL;DR
Single-family zoning covers most of the village.
Middle housing is legal in most neighborhoods.
Change Is Scary
The Craftsman, Foursquare, and Prairie Style family homes that define Oak Park will be illegal under the new code.
The new zoning code eliminates exclusions that allow only those styles of homes to build. You’re free to build new houses.
Apartment buildings will be allowed on every block, and no guardrails will be present.
“Middle housing” is a system of guardrails that ensures multi-family on neighborhood blocks shares the same scale as your house.
The rezoning plan was sprung on the Village at the last moment and is the project of a minority of Oak Parkers.
This project has been underway since 2021, spans 2 village board elections, involved numerous standing-room-only public meetings, and follows recommendations made years ago.
Why it matters
Oak Park last overhauled its zoning in 2017. The map you live under was drawn for a village of single-family lots and corner apartment buildings.
This proposal is the first village-wide attempt to make the small multi-unit buildings that already define Oak Park legal to build again.
How We Got Here
The board adopts “affordability” and “racial equity” as official board goals and schedules a study session on ordinances that make Oak Park unaffordable and that prevent two-flats.
Ordinance 22-1 expands the zoning code to allow Accessory Dwelling Units (coach houses and “granny flats”).
Oak Park retains the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus to update 2012’s “Homes For A Changing Region” plan, conduct community surveys and events, and recommend a forward-looking housing strategy.
A board election. Housing advocates Cory Wesley and Brian Straw are elected, along with progressive Susan Buchanan.
Metropolitan Mayors Caucus conducts the housing study, generating 637 survey responses, two large public meetings, and 17 focus-group sessions.
The Metropolitan Mayors Caucus project is presented to the board, recommending middle housing by-right throughout Oak Park, and multi-use by-right on current commercial zones. The board legally adopts its new “Strategic Vision for Housing”.
A board election. Trustees Enyia and Taglia return to the board, along with progressive newcomer Jenna Leving Jacobsen.
The board retains Opticos for a 9-month project to write a new zoning code and map implementing the “Strategic Vision for Housing”. “Shape Oak Park” is launched as the public outreach component of that project.
The plan you’re looking at.
The Board Consensus
This rezoning plan is the culmination of board goals set back in 2021.
The median single-family home in Oak Park now sells for over a half-million dollars. There are no starter homes; the smallest homes will sell for over $400,000. Scarcity and desirability will drive these prices higher in coming years.
It was designed by Harland Bartholomew, a pioneer in using zoning and land-use rules to exclude Black families from wealthier neighborhoods. Exclusionary zoning has its origins in segregation. That doesn’t make supporters of our current zoning racist! But it does mean we don’t owe anything to the current map.
Every empty-nester in Oak Park is being bid against by incoming families with kids hoping to attend D97 and D200. When older Oak Parkers sell, there’s no place for them to move to; our land is overwhelmingly used by single-family homes, all of them priced for families in their prime earning years.
Retail businesses depend on foot traffic. Exclusionary single-family neighborhoods can’t provide enough of it for new businesses on Chicago Ave, North Ave, and Roosevelt to survive.
Without commercial growth the village depends increasingly on the property tax levy. That levy in turn draws primarily from single-family houses, which are filled with people voting rationally to raise D97 and D200 taxes, which ratchets the problem upwards. We need housing diversity to break the cycle.
The Front Lines Of Racial Segregation
Chicago is famously one of the most segregated cities in the country, and redlining pushed Black families through the west and south sides of the city. After redlining was banned, desegregation was a wave that crashed over the western suburbs. Here’s the story, condensed.
Berkeley, California adopts the nation’s first single-family zoning ordinance, to keep Chinese and Japanese working-class families out of affluent areas.
Buchanan v. Warley invalidates zoning codes that explicitly segregate by race.
The Great Migration prompts the proliferation of racially restrictive covenants on home sales throughout Chicagoland.
Oak Park adopts its first ever zoning code, cordoning off much of the village for single-family housing.
Oak Park retains Harland Bartholomew, famed for architecting the racially exclusive housing system of St. Louis, to design its new zoning code, creating the basis of our current map. Bartholomew pioneers the use of envelope restrictions, setbacks, and height limits to prevent inexpensive housing.
Shelley v. Kraemer makes racially restrictive covenants unenforceable; municipalities are now dependent on zoning to keep Black families out.
Percy Julian’s home in Oak Park is firebombed.
a passing car throws a stick of dynamite at Julian’s house, exploding outside his children’s bedroom window.
Oak Park becomes the 26th community in Illinois to pass a Fair Housing ordinance. Realtors oppose it and residents storm the podium when it’s announced.
The machinery of “managed integration” takes shape: Oak Park considers and ultimately votes down a racial quota ordinance that would restrict Black families from Oak Park, and the Oak Park Housing Center (later: the OPRHC) is created to steer Black families to specific buildings and parts of the village.
Oak Park creates the Frank Lloyd Wright historic district, freezing the wealthy “Estates” section of the village in amber.
The decennial census records 5,900 Black Oak parkers, 11% of the village, up from 132 in 1970.
Out of pure coincidence, the Village creates the Ridgeland historic district, commemorating the historic accomplishments of stucco, locking up another large section of the village.
Village-wide changes
Some changes aren't tied to a single district — they rewrite rules that run through the whole code. Click each for more information.
In accordance with the Illinois People Over Parking Act, the proposal sets zero vehicle-parking minimums everywhere (bike parking requirements remain). By contrast, most housing today requires one to two off-street parking spaces *per unit*.
MMH recommendations; 50 ILCS 845
The recommendation permits two-unit, triplex, and fourplex housing in the Neighborhood districts that are single-family-only today, subject to dimensional and design rules. Some corridor and transit-adjacent lots may reach six units on a walking-distance test.
MMH recommendations, Article 4
Current districts cap the share of a lot a building may cover. The proposal removes this as redundant with the impervious-surface cap, which remains. The buildable envelope is then set by setbacks and impervious limits, not a coverage percentage.
MMH recommendations, proposed Table 4-1
Existing small and non-standard lots that fail today's minimum-area tests would no longer be constrained by them, making more lots buildable and more existing lots conforming.
MMH recommendations, proposed Table 4-1
Coach houses and secondary units — already allowed with single-family homes — see relaxed constraints under the proposal. Exact size and configuration limits depend on lot size and are flagged where the recommendation is ambiguous.
MMH recommendations; current Section 2.3
The proposal changes when design review applies to residential projects. Historic preservation review under Chapter 7 is separate and continues to apply regardless of zoning.
MMH recommendations; current Chapter 7
There are currently 519 buildings in Oak Park that don't comply with our zoning code. After the adoption of the proposal, that number goes down to 46, because the zoning rules are simplified and streamlined so buildings rarely require exceptions.
See above.
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Here's The Raw Data