Remodeling contractor in Plainfield, IL

The Village of Plainfield issues building permits, and we handle the permit and inspections. For a single family or two family house, an addition does not go through the village's site plan review, which the zoning ordinance reserves for other new construction and additions. Your addition is checked against the zoning standards for your district at permit stage.

If the house is a designated landmark or sits in a designated historic district, the zoning ordinance requires a certificate of appropriateness before a permit is issued for any work that may affect the exterior appearance. Interior work such as a kitchen or bathroom does not change the exterior, so it does not trigger that review on its own.

The Downtown Plainfield Historic District runs along Lockport Street and was nominated to the National Register of Historic Places in 2013. Its nomination counts 53 properties and describes Greek Revival, Italianate and Queen Anne buildings alongside upright and wing houses, bungalows and American foursquares, with the earliest buildings and most of the houses built in wood frame. The zoning ordinance adds an R1 Overlay district for the residential streets of the historic core.

The rest of town is much newer. A 2012 Patch report on the comprehensive plan described the large developments that flooded the village in the early 2000s, and named Creekside Crossing and Springbank in the southwest as partly built out. Plainfield was also hit on August 28, 1990, when an F5 tornado struck Kendall and Will Counties and the National Weather Service recorded its worst damage from Plainfield to Crest Hill.

In the older wood frame houses of the historic core, a kitchen or bathroom remodel means working inside walls and floors that may be more than a century old. Floors may need levelling and openings reframing before the cabinets go in.

In an early 2000s subdivision house the structure is newer and the work is mostly about layout, finishes and fixtures that are now 20 to 25 years old. Either way, the work stays inside, so it is an ordinary building permit rather than a historic review.

The DuPage River runs through Plainfield. In April 2013, Patch reported that flooding forced 18 residents of the Marybrook subdivision and several River Road homeowners to evacuate, and closed Route 59 at the viaduct between Lockport Street and 143rd Street.

The zoning ordinance also lets the village engineer limit impervious surface on a lot where drainage problems are already known. Before finishing a basement in a low part of town, look at sump capacity, backup protection and where the yard sends water.

In the R1 single family district, the minimum lot is 12,000 square feet and 85 feet wide. Setbacks are 30 feet front and rear and 7 feet on each side with 20 feet total, buildings may cover no more than 30 percent of the lot, and the height limit is 35 feet. That leaves less room for an addition than the lot size suggests.

In the R1 Overlay around downtown, at least half of a residential lot must stay open space, and detached accessory structures there are decided case by case after a historic preservation commission recommendation. Across the village, detached garages and sheds together cannot exceed 1,000 square feet or the footprint of the house, whichever is less. The commission also offers a concept review, so you can get its comments before paying for full drawings.

Plainfield's zoning ordinance permits private swimming pools in the rear yard only. They are not allowed in a front yard, side yard or corner side yard. On an R1 lot with a 30 foot rear setback and the 30 percent building coverage limit, the pool, patio and any future addition all have to fit in the same back yard, so we plan them together.