HELP : Chicago zoning mess

[Brie Schmidt]

I am in a pickle and wondering if any of my Chicago peeps have been in this situation and how they got out of it.

My clients bought a 2 flat with a coach house in 2018 and were issued a 3 DU cert.  We are under contract to sell it and supposed to close last week but the city will only issue a 2 DU cert because they "have no record of permits to convert the storefront into a residential coach house"

We did a FOIA on the water records which came back with nothing, we are still waiting for the FOIA on the permit records but don't think it will give us anything because we talked to the seller from 1986 and he said the coach house was a storefront when they sold it. The new owner had it from 1986 to 1997 and when he sold it they listed it as a 1 bed apartment (according to the MLS listing from 1997), so we are pretty positive he converted it during his ownership. That guy got caught building a garage without a permit in March 1996 and had a stop work order issued. When he applied for the garage permit he included this statement to the city certifying that the coach house was neither commercial or residential and only used for storage. My guess is the city started poking around as he had already made it an apartment and wanted to get the city off his back. So our hopes at reconsideration based on on the historical permit records are slim to none.

So it looks like our only move here is to prove that the coach house has been existing as residential for at least 20 years and get an administrative adjustment. We have the MLS listings from 1997 saying it was a 1 bed apartment and the listing from 2004 saying it was a 3 bedroom apartment that was renovated 3 years ago. We have done a FOIA on the voting records. We have reached out to every buyer/seller agent as well as previous owners to try and get statements proving it was an apartment.

The issue is... now we need plans drawn up, a permit issued, and a city inspection on something that was converted decades ago and will cost thousands of dollars and time.  My clients obviously feel this is unfair as the city certified it as a 3 DU when they bought it.

So I am asking if anyone has been through this and how you got out of it?

@Mark Ainley @Tom Shallcross @Jake Fugman @Henry Lazerow @Crystal Smith @John Warren @Sarita Scherpereel @Jonathan Klemm