Skokie, IL Home Business: Home Daycare (2026)

Section 118-94(a) of the Skokie Village Code sets the zoning rules for child day care run out of a residence, on top of the licensing standards in Chapter 54, Article VII, Day Care Homes, which every home day care must also satisfy. No more than two day care homes may operate within the same block, and any two facilities must be at least 100 feet apart measured along the street frontage from the closest property line of each lot, spreading the use out rather than clustering it.

Every home day care needs a way for parents to drop off and pick up children safely: if the lot has a driveway, that driveway must be available for drop-off and pick-up; if it does not, the Village requires an 18 inch wide carriage walk connecting to the public sidewalk along the lot's street frontage, and drop-off and pick-up traffic must stay on the same side of the street as the day care home. Drop-off and pick-up can never happen on an arterial street, keeping higher-volume traffic away from young children.

Zoning approval itself depends on the housing type: in a detached or townhouse residence, a home day care is a permitted use once the spacing and access conditions are met, but in every other residential building type, such as a two-unit or multifamily building, the operator must first obtain a special use permit under Article II of Chapter 118, which requires Plan Commission review.