Following over a year of code writing, test fitting development scenarios, and community engagement with residents and developers, the City of Champaign has adopted its first comprehensive Zoning Ordinance update in over thirty years.

This revised Zoning Ordinance advances City Council’s Incremental Development Council Goal and will help promote additional housing development throughout the City of Champaign.

This new zoning ordinance is reorganized from start to finish to help make our regulations easier to navigate and understand and allows for more by-right and administratively approved development. Other highlights include:

• Elimination of mandatory minimum off-street parking requirements;
• Increased Floor Area Ratio (FAR) maximums in our Mixed Residential Neighborhood Zoning Districts where apartments are already permitted;
• Creation of a new University Neighborhood district with height maximums of twelve stories to support additional housing construction;
• Creation of a new Research Park zoning district to support the continued success and expansion of the University of Illinois Research Park;
• Alignment of maximum building heights in the Zoning Ordinance to building code standards to promote more livable units and taller ground floor commercial spaces in mixed use buildings;
• Updated landscaping and lighting standards which increases landscaping within parking areas, requiring shade trees in parking areas, and full-cutoff dark sky compliant lighting.
• The creation of a Transfer of Development Rights incentive for Historic Landmark properties in Champaign.
• Creating an administrative process to memorialize existing non-conforming residential uses – allowing these properties to obtain building permits without Zoning Board of Appeals or Plan Commission review.

Another new feature of the updated Zoning Ordinance is the conversion of over fifty pages of text explaining our permitted or special uses into a single Permitted Use Table which is color coded to our Official Zoning Map.

In a few months, our updated Zoning Ordinance will be available online on Municode. Until then, you can review the entire code on our EngageChampaign project page.

Table III-C Permitted and Special Use Table