Remodeling contractor in Wilmette, IL

The Community Development Department at Village Hall, 1200 Wilmette Avenue, issues building permits. Its list of work that needs one includes remodeling, additions, plumbing, electrical, drain tile and basement waterproofing, and swimming pools and spas. Every contractor on the permit needs a Wilmette contractors' licence first, renewed each calendar year. We register before we pull, and we handle the permit and the inspections.

A few things are exempt. New flooring needs no permit, and on a single family house neither does replacing a window or door within the existing opening. Wilmette builds to the 2018 International Residential Code and the 2018 International Swimming Pool and Spa Code, with local amendments in Chapter 8 of the Village Code.

Wilmette is old by suburban standards. CMAP's 2025 housing profile puts the median year built at 1956, with 29 percent of homes built in 1939 or earlier and another 28 percent between 1940 and 1959. About 82 percent of units are single unit buildings.

The zoning ordinance describes the neighbourhoods better than any brochure. One residential sub district is mostly single story and split level homes built since the 1950s. Another holds older homes, many of them three stories, on lots 50 to 60 feet wide. Another has lots under 50 feet wide with small footprints. And one covers the large homes around Chestnut, Ashland, Greenwood and Elmwood east of Green Bay Road. Your sub district sets your height and bulk limits.

With nearly three in ten homes built before 1940, a Wilmette kitchen often means plaster walls, framing that has been altered more than once, and wiring from several different decades. We expect to find it and we plan the rough work around it rather than discovering it halfway through.

Lead is part of that. The Village reminds homeowners that contractors disturbing paint in homes built before 1978 must be EPA certified and follow lead safe work practices. In a house this age we treat old painted trim, doors and window casings as lead until a test says otherwise.

Where you live relative to Ridge Road matters before you finish a basement. East of Ridge Road the Village runs a combined sewer, one pipe carrying sewage and stormwater, with street berms that hold runoff in the street and relief sewers that add capacity. West of Ridge Road the sanitary and storm sewers are separate, and the Village finished its Neighborhood Storage Project in 2022 to protect homes vulnerable to structure flooding in a 10 year storm.

Either way, drain tile and basement waterproofing need a permit in Wilmette. We look at how the house connects to the sewer, how the foundation drains and whether a backup could reach the new finish before we frame a single wall. If a property sits in a FEMA flood area, new construction there also has to provide elevations on USGS datum.

Wilmette does not use a single lot coverage percentage. Maximum lot coverage and floor area for a single family house come from formulas tied to lot area, so a bigger lot gets a lower percentage, with floors of 20 percent coverage and 30 percent floor area. Your sub district tells us which formula and which bonuses apply.

Wilmette has 38 local landmarks, plus three National Register districts: Village Center, Oak Circle and Ouilmette North. National Register listing is honorific and does not by itself stop alterations. A designated Wilmette Landmark, or a contributing building in a Wilmette Historic District, is different. Altering it needs a certificate of appropriateness from the Historic Preservation Commission, applied for through Community Development, with plans showing what will be visible from the street.

Every pool, spa and hot tub in Wilmette goes through administrative zoning review. Pools are allowed in the rear yard only and never between the house and a street. Pumps and filters must sit 15 feet from every lot line, though on a lot narrower than 35 feet the equipment can go roughly midway between the side lines. Pool setbacks grow by one foot for every foot the pool rises above grade, and the layout has to keep water off the neighbours, keep noise and sightlines down and shield the lighting.

The building side adds its own rules. A permit is required for any pool holding 2,500 gallons or more. Wilmette's amendments call for a hard, slip resistant walk at least four feet wide all the way around an inground pool, and backwash or drain water must go to the street gutter through a filter bag, never into a sewer connection or onto an adjoining lot. A pool house or cabana is capped at 300 square feet.