Short answer: if your building is a designated Chicago Landmark or sits inside a landmark district, yes – exterior masonry work, including tuckpointing, goes through review before a permit can be issued. If your building is merely “orange-rated,” the rules are different. This guide untangles who needs what, based on the city’s own sources.

When does tuckpointing require landmark review in Chicago?

Chicago protects its designated buildings through the Chicago Landmarks Ordinance (Chapter 2-120 of the Municipal Code). Under it, the Commission on Chicago Landmarks reviews all permit applications for work on individual landmarks and on buildings within landmark districts – and no permit for that work can be issued until the review is complete.

That includes masonry repair. Tuckpointing changes the visible surface of a protected facade, so the Commission’s staff looks at what you plan to remove, what you plan to install, and whether the new mortar will match the historic original in composition, color, and joint profile. Most routine repair permits are handled at staff level in a matter of days; larger alterations can go to the full Commission.

What standards does the Commission use to judge your mortar?

The review criteria are based on the U.S. Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation – the same federal framework used by preservation commissions nationwide. For repointing specifically, the technical reference is the National Park Service’s Preservation Brief 2: Repointing Mortar Joints in Historic Masonry Buildings. Its core requirements, in plain language:

• the replacement mortar should match the original in composition, color, texture, and joint profile;
• the new mortar must be softer (weaker) than the historic brick or stone around it;
• old mortar should be removed carefully, without damaging the edges of the masonry units;
• repair should be preferred over replacement wherever the original material can be saved.

Notice what this means in practice: a standard tuckpointing job done with hard Portland cement – the default on most modern crews’ trucks – fails these criteria on the first point and the second. It is exactly the kind of work that gets flagged in review or, worse, gets done without a permit and has to be torn out at the owner’s expense.

My building is “orange-rated.” Is that the same as a landmark?

No, and this is the most common confusion we hear from owners. The Chicago Historic Resources Survey (CHRS), completed in 1995, catalogued the city’s pre-1940 buildings and color-coded them by significance: roughly 300 “red” properties of citywide or national importance and about 9,600 “orange” properties significant to their community – a group that includes thousands of greystones, two-flats, and workers cottages.

An orange or red rating by itself does not put your repairs under landmark review. What it does trigger is the city’s Demolition-Delay Ordinance, adopted in 2003: a hold of up to 90 days on any demolition permit, giving the city time to evaluate whether the building should be saved. So for tuckpointing and masonry repair, an orange-rated building that is not in a landmark district is regulated like any other – though if the survey considered your building significant, it almost certainly deserves the same preservation-grade treatment either way.

How do I check my building’s status?

Three steps, all free:

• Check the CHRS database on the city’s Landmarks web portal to see whether your property was surveyed and what color rating it carries;
• Check landmark status – the same portal lists designated Chicago Landmarks and landmark districts; if your address falls inside a district boundary, review applies even if your individual building seems unremarkable;
• When in doubt, ask before you scaffold – the city’s Historic Preservation Division handles permit review questions, and a five-minute check beats a stop-work order mid-project.

What does a smooth landmark review look like?

From the projects we’ve taken through review, the difference between “approved in days” and “months of back-and-forth” comes down to the application package. A strong one includes photos of existing conditions, a description of the failed areas, and – the part most contractors skip – a mortar specification: what the original mix is, what the replacement mix will be, and why they match. When the specification already follows Preservation Brief 2, the reviewer has little left to question.

This is also a useful filter when hiring. Ask a prospective contractor how they document mortar for landmark review. If the answer is a blank look, the review process will be the least of your problems – because a crew that can’t describe your mortar can’t match it either.

Frequently asked questions

Does landmark review make tuckpointing more expensive?

The review itself is not the cost driver – matching the mortar properly is, and that work should be happening on any pre-1950 building, landmarked or not. What review adds is documentation, which a contractor experienced in historic brick restoration produces as a normal part of the job.

What happens if masonry work is done on a landmark without review?

Work without a required permit can result in stop-work orders, fines, and an order to undo the work – which for bad tuckpointing means grinding out fresh mortar, at the owner’s cost, with extra damage to the brick in the process. It is dramatically cheaper to do it once, correctly, with the paperwork in order.

My two-flat isn’t landmarked or orange-rated. Should I care about any of this?

The legal obligations don’t apply – but the physics do. The reason the standards demand soft, matched mortar isn’t bureaucratic; it’s that hard cement destroys historic brick. We follow the same specification on every pre-1950 building we touch, designated or not.

Sources & further reading: City of Chicago, Landmark Permit Review – Commission on Chicago Landmarks · City of Chicago, Chicago Historic Resources Survey · National Park Service, Preservation Brief 2 – Repointing Mortar Joints in Historic Masonry Buildings

Own a building in a landmark district and dreading the paperwork? We prepare permit-ready mortar documentation as part of every project. Learn more about our historic brick restoration and masonry restoration services, or get in touch for a free assessment.