About this dataset

Published by: Indiana Association of REALTORS, Research
Snapshot date: July 21, 2026
Contact for corrections: [email protected]

What this is

The zoning ordinances, and the residential lot-size standards inside them, for the 50 largest home-building cities and towns in Indiana, collected in one place for the first time. The library contains 56 source documents (full ordinances, code excerpts, and documented captures of online-only codes) plus a structured dataset recording the minimum lot size for every residential zoning district in every municipality: 224 district-level records in all.

We built this dataset for our research on Indiana's housing supply, where one question kept coming up and nowhere had an answer: what do Indiana's own zoning codes actually require? Now anyone can check.

How it was collected

Between July 17 and 21, 2026, we gathered each municipality's current zoning ordinance or unified development ordinance from the municipality's own website, its codified code host (American Legal Publishing, Municode, encodeplus), or by direct reading where only online viewers exist. For each residential district we recorded the minimum lot area for a single-family detached dwelling and whether that use is permitted by right. Where codes regulate density rather than lot size (Lebanon, Munster), we derived an equivalent. Every value carries a source citation; every document carries a SHA-256 checksum so future readers can confirm they are looking at the exact file we analyzed.

What this is not

• Not legal advice, and not a substitute for the official code. Ordinances are amended constantly; verify with the municipality before relying on any value.
• Not a zoning map. We record what districts allow, not where districts are mapped.
• Not an evaluation of any municipality. Codes differ for many legitimate local reasons.

License

Ordinance texts are government edicts and are in the public domain. The compiled dataset and documentation are released under CC-BY 4.0, use them freely with attribution to Indiana Association of REALTORS Research.

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