Type an address. Get the zoning, the uses it permits, the setbacks and height, the hazards on the lot and the approval path — each cited to the adopted code, in about thirty seconds.
Yes, a duplex is permitted with conditions in the MD-17 district.
| Standard | MD-17 |
|---|---|
| Max density | 17 units / acre |
Site-plan review runs $250 + $20 per 1,000 sq ft of floor area.
An afternoon of due diligence, or one question. Spoonbill reads the same adopted code the planning department reads, and cites the same sections.
The district, every use it permits by right or with conditions, and the ones it doesn't — read off the city's own use table, not summarized from memory.
Setbacks, build-to zones, height and bonus height, lot coverage and minimum lot area — drawn as an envelope on the parcel, with the table it came from.
FEMA and community floodplains, wetlands, historic districts, overlays and plan areas — mapped on the parcel before you write the LOI.
Conventional or conditional rezoning, community-meeting requirements, review steps and the fee schedule that applies — with dates, so you know the schedule is current.
The first pass on a site — district, uses, envelope, hazards, process — is the same afternoon of document-hunting every time. Spoonbill turns it into one question, so the hours go into the sites that survive.
Typical time to a cited answer on a covered address.
One site the code was never going to allow, caught before the option payment, pays for years of this.
Fourteen days, no card, your market.
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The property profile pulls the parcel, its district, the envelope, hazards and plan areas — then you ask whatever the deal needs.
Every answer names the section, table and effective date, so it goes straight into your memo, LOI or feasibility deck.
Each city is indexed from its adopted documents and watched for amendments. Don't see your market? Sign up and name it — the cities people ask for are the ones we build next.
Start free for 14 days, no credit card. Pay monthly, or save two months by paying annually.
The only differences are how many people can sign in and how many markets they can open. No feature limits, no cap on questions.
Everything Spoonbill indexes is already a public record: the adopted code, fee schedule, plans and parcel records. The only private data we hold is your own questions and the sites you look at. That's it.
Built to clear an IT and legal review before anyone asks.
Adopted codes, fees, plans and parcel records: public documents, indexed and kept current. No private dataset to leak.
Your questions, the sites you look at, and your account info are never sold and never used to train shared or third-party models.
Encrypted in transit and at rest with AES-256, passwordless sign-in, and US-based hosting. SOC 2 on the roadmap.
Designed to meet WCAG 2.1 AA and Section 508. A VPAT is available on request.
Coverage is listed above and grows city by city. If your market isn't there yet, sign up and tell us the city — the cities people ask for are the ones we build next. Most take a week or two once the adopted documents are public.
Every answer is built only from the city's adopted documents, and each one links straight to the source: the exact section, and the effective date of the document it comes from, so you can confirm it in a click. Spoonbill doesn't draw on the open web or outside knowledge; if the answer isn't in the documents, it tells you rather than filling the gap. You're never taking its word for it, because you're taken to the passage it came from.
Spoonbill reads the same adopted code the planning department reads and cites the same sections. It does not replace a pre-application meeting or a zoning verification letter, and it says so when a provision leaves a case unresolved. What it does is get you to the right section, with the citation, before you spend a week or an option payment finding out.
It tells you what the code allows: the permitted building types, the lot-area and lot-width minimums per unit where the district has them, the setbacks, height and build-to zone, and whether the use needs a conditional rezoning. Where a district has no density cap it says so rather than inventing one. Yield still depends on your site plan, parking and the engineering — which is exactly why the citations matter.
Automated watchers monitor each city's published sources for changes. When an ordinance, fee, or plan is updated, Spoonbill wipes the old index and rebuilds it from the current documents, so what you search always mirrors what's actually adopted, with no superseded language left behind. The refresh runs on its own; there's nothing to re-upload or maintain.
No. Your questions, the sites you look at, and your account information are never sold and never used to train shared or third-party models. Spoonbill only searches the adopted public documents to answer your questions.
Yes. Team covers up to ten seats and three markets for one flat price; Firm covers up to thirty seats and every covered market, and puts your city requests at the front of the queue. Larger brokerages and enterprise buyers can talk to us about custom seats, markets and invoicing.
A market is one covered city: its code, fee schedule, plans, parcels, hazards and map. Solo includes one, Team three, Firm all of them. You choose your markets when you sign up and can swap one at any renewal; adding a market mid-term is prorated.
Start a free 14-day trial in your market. No credit card, no commitment.