Chicago has a very stringent building safety code. For years the city has been notorious for being the only municipality in the country to use its own home-grown laws instead of the International Building Code. Upcoming changes to the city laws will bring us closer to those in the rest of the country, but we're still not completely following the IBC for everything. But no matter which laws are in effect, getting caught in violation of the code is expensive.
City inspectors ticket buildings just like parking officers ticket illegally parked cars. In fact both types of tickets can be challenged at the same place, the city department of Administrative Hearings. Fines range from $20 for minor infractions to $50,000 for the worst safety problems. Of course every fine has administrative fees tacked on, so even a $20 fine will actually cost about $100 plus the cost to repair the actual problem once all is said and done. In addition to the Department of Administrative Hearings, additional violations are tried in the civil court of Cook County.
The city of Chicago's data portal contains a list of all building code violations uncovered by city inspectors going back to 2006. This massive database is one of the many resources we use in creating our apartment safety reports. But we can obtain other useful information from the list without drilling down to an individual address. Today we'll be sorting it by violation type to determine the 10 most common problems that can get building owners (including landlords) into hot water with the city. Some of these problems are minor, others are major, but in each case tenants can expect that the cost of the fine will be passed on to them in the form of rent increases. Continue reading Face Value: The Most Common Building Violations in Chicago
