"We write zoning compliance letters routinely. If we wrote them strictly according to the code, somebody couldn't get financing." Steve Glinke, Forest Park's Director of the Department of Health and Safety, said that to the Forest Park Review in June 2025. He was describing a practical arrangement that has quietly let most of the village's housing stock keep changing hands.
Glinke put the scale this way: 76% of Forest Park's residential properties have at least one bulk feature that doesn't comply with the code, such as a side yard setback or the amount of lot covered. That's more than 2,100 of the village's 2,828 residential lots. If you buy a home in Forest Park, odds are you're buying a legal nonconforming property. The house itself is fine. What you can do with it after closing depends on a set of rules most buyers never read.
The paperwork that keeps sales moving
Being nonconforming doesn't make a home illegal. Forest Park's zoning title lets any existing legal nonconforming building continue, subject to the chapter's rules and as long as it complies with all other applicable laws and codes. That same section puts the burden of proving the building is legal on the property owner. When you close, that burden becomes yours.
Day to day, it rarely comes up. It matters when a lender wants a zoning compliance letter, or when you want to change the house. Glinke told the Review that owners of noncompliant properties who want to refinance or build can get stuck, because "they're asking for something that the code doesn't allow." In some of those cases, he said, there's no conditional use to request at a Planning and Zoning Commission meeting, and four homeowners' projects had stalled for that reason.
So the real question during a Forest Park purchase isn't whether the house conforms. Most don't. The question is which rule it misses, by how much, and whether that matters for the plans you have.
How a village ends up with a code most homes fail
Some of this goes back generations. In a December 2024 feature, Glinke traced some nonconforming two-flats to wartime housing demand near the torpedo factory. The Review also reported that houses moved out of the way of the Eisenhower Expressway in the 1950s were set down on local lots, including one north-side lot that holds three single-family houses. Village Administrator Rachell Entler said her own house sits on the property line.
The biggest single cause is more recent. The village's 2026 resident Q&A on the proposed updates says changes to lot width requirements in 2010 "unintentionally made thousands of existing homes 'non-conforming' overnight." The same document says Cook County GIS data shows 803 homes built on 25-foot lots, and that building on those lots needed no special exception for decades before 2010.
That history explains why so many homes miss the code, and it also shows what they miss on. A narrow lot, a house close to a side lot line, or a garage that pushes total coverage over the limit is a bulk problem, and bulk problems are exactly where the code's rules for nonconforming homes kick in.
What grandfathered status protects, and what ends it
The ordinance lets an owner keep a nonconforming home. Growing it, or rebuilding it, is a different matter. These are the provisions that most directly affect value:
| Situation | What Title 9 says |
|---|---|
| Ordinary repairs and maintenance | Allowed, as long as the work doesn't create a new nonconformity or make an existing one worse |
| Damage beyond the owner's or tenant's control, under 50% of replacement value | You can keep the prior degree of nonconformity only if you get a permit within one year of the damage and finish within one year after it's issued |
| Damage from fire, explosion or an act of God beyond the owner's control, over 50% of replacement value | The general rule is to rebuild in conformity; a single- or two-family home may be rebuilt to standards the Zoning Administrator sets for the district, but no more nonconforming than before |
| Demolition or removal the owner chooses | Full compliance with the code is required |
The last row matters most for a buyer planning a teardown or a major gut job. A house that sits three feet from the lot line today may not be allowed to sit there again once its owner takes it down. The one-year windows in the second row are the kind of deadline that can slip by while an owner is still settling an insurance claim.
Four routes for a project, from least process to most
If your plans go beyond repairs, Forest Park's zoning code sorts projects into routes with very different amounts of process:
- Administrative garage replacement. For a single-family use, the Zoning Administrator may approve replacing one existing garage that's nonconforming only because of lot coverage or side or rear yard rules, in kind or smaller, when the garage can't reasonably be brought closer to compliance. No part of it can cross the property line.
- Administrative additions. Some additions to a single- or two-family home, coach homes excluded, can be approved at staff level if parking complies and the addition either meets every other zoning rule without adding units or stays within the listed safeguards for encroaching into a side yard.
- A Zoning Administrator hearing and a Council ordinance. A narrower route for additions to homes with certain yard or parking nonconformities requires no new dwelling units, no further encroachment into yards, minimum yard area kept, and conditions on distance, light and air.
- A Planning and Zoning Commission hearing and a Council ordinance. Any addition that doesn't fit the routes above goes here.
A formal variation follows the fourth route. Forest Park merged its Plan Commission and Zoning Board of Appeals into one Planning and Zoning Commission in 2022. Forest Park's code sets a $150 application fee plus the cost of legal notice and a hearing transcript. Notice has to be published 15 to 30 days before the hearing, and owners within 250 feet have to be notified. After the hearing, the commission has 60 days to send its written recommendation, and the Council has 45 days after receiving it to act. The ordinance doesn't promise a total timeline. The applicant also has to show a particular hardship or practical difficulty tied to the property, as the code requires.
You can watch this process at work on the village's current agendas. The Planning and Zoning Commission's August 17, 2026 agenda listed case PZC 2026-03, a variance for a two-story garage at 444 Marengo in an R1 district. A garage project that elsewhere might stop at the permit counter went in front of a commission at a public meeting.
Accessory dwelling units are the hardest case. None of the administrative routes for nonconforming additions allows more dwelling units. At an April 2026 town hall, a resident said he had been trying for years to build an ADU above his garage for use as an office.
The reform that would close the gap has no date
The village has tried to align the code with its housing stock. The package Council considered in May 2025 would have raised maximum lot coverage in R1 districts from 40% to 50%, allowed two-family homes in R1, and in R3 allowed 80% coverage with no minimum setbacks. On May 27, 2025 it failed: Mayor Rory Hoskins and Commissioner Jessica Voogd voted no, and Commissioner Michelle Melin-Rogovin abstained. Hoskins told the Review he didn't want to cast a tie-breaking vote on changes "of that nature" without more agreement on the council. To come back, the package has to return to the Planning and Zoning Commission first.
On April 22, 2026, about 30 people came to a town hall at Village Hall led by Commissioner Ryan Nero and Glinke. According to the Review, the proposed amendments would bring about 75% of currently nonconforming residential properties into compliance. That figure is a share of the nonconforming lots, so it measures something different from the 76% of all residential lots in Glinke's 2025 count. Voogd's concern was that once larger projects are allowed by right, "it gets a lot more enticing for a developer because they don't have to go through the variance process."
Since then, nothing has been decided. The village's posted Council agendas from May 11 through September 28, 2026 show no vote on the residential package. For anyone buying this fall, the current code is the one that applies.
Even if the reform passes, permitting stays in place. Glinke told the town hall that single-family projects have to submit a $1,500 civil engineering plan at permitting, and that "zoning just gives you the approval to do it. The heavy lift comes at permitting." The village's Q&A adds that converting a basement into a second unit can cost more than $200,000. Investment plans that depend on adding units have to account for engineering costs as well as zoning approval.
Questions to settle before the offer goes firm
Because the burden of proving legal status falls on the owner, a buyer has good reason to learn the answers while there's still room in the contract:
- Which bulk rule does the property miss: lot width, side setback, lot coverage, or more than one?
- Will your lender need a zoning compliance letter, and when can the village provide one?
- If you plan an addition or a new garage, does the project fit one of the administrative routes, or does it need a hearing?
- Does a teardown or major rebuild on this lot, built to today's code, still give you the house you want?
- For sellers, what records do you have showing when the house and garage were built and permitted?
None of this is legal advice. American Legal Publishing, which hosts Forest Park's code online, warns that its version may not reflect the village's most recent legislation, so confirm any specific provision with the village before you rely on it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does "nonconforming" mean the house was built illegally? Not by itself. Under Title 9, an existing legal nonconforming building may continue, subject to the chapter's rules and compliance with other applicable laws and codes, with the owner responsible for proving that legal status.
Can I split a 50-foot lot and build a second house? The village's own Q&A argues that this rarely pays off. It points out that existing homes often straddle lot lines, that splitting a lot reduces the value of the remaining home, and that demolition and construction costs often exceed the profit.
Is the zoning reform likely to pass soon? No vote appears on the village's posted Council agendas through September 28, 2026. After the 2025 rejection, the package has to go back through the Planning and Zoning Commission before Council can take it up again.
If you own one of Forest Park's 2,100-plus nonconforming lots and want to know how its zoning status may come up in a sale, or you're weighing an offer on a home that sits close to the lot line, Ed Bellock can help you sort out which questions to settle and when. A good first step is your instant home valuation, followed by a conversation about the specific rules that apply to your lot.
