# Methodology and data dictionary Study ID: PP-2026-10-09-TCO-01 Original collection: October 9, 2026 Publication review: October 14, 2026 ## Research question Which published intake and routing checks can apply to a commercial tenant change or alteration, including projects with little or no construction? ## Design and scope This is a purposive comparison of public municipal guidance from Naperville, Illinois, and Madison, Wisconsin. Five official webpages and one blank municipal application form supply 20 selected observations. The unit is a source-specific check, instruction, workflow definition or group of related form fields. No applications, real correction letters, applicant identifiers, private portal records or project outcomes were collected. A row labelled “corrections” records the city's published process; it is not an observed correction issued to a business. This is not a representative survey of Illinois, Wisconsin or Indiana, and it supports no Indiana conclusion. Sources were selected because they directly address commercial occupancy or alteration routing and were publicly readable. The study intentionally keeps separate evidence categories: stated_requirement, official_guidance, documented_process and form_field. A form field shows that information is requested; it does not prove that a particular reviewer checked or enforced it. ## Extraction and verification 1. Read the six official sources and identify distinct intake or routing checks. 2. Paraphrase each check, retain its conditions, and assign a stable observation ID and source ID. 3. Record a precise heading, numbered guide item or PDF page/field locator. 4. Avoid counting repeated wording on overlapping pages as separate discoveries. Related fields can be grouped as one practical check. 5. Reopen all six sources on October 14, 2026 and compare each retained row with its cited passage. The reviewed claims remain supported. 6. Confirm the article's counts against the CSV and JSON; preserve the original collection date separately from the later verification date. The row totals describe editorial extraction choices. They do not measure a complete checklist, the frequency of a requirement, review workload, approval probability or rejection frequency. ## Dates and uncertainty No explicit publication or revision date was identified in the reviewed content for any of the six sources. All 20 source_date values therefore remain null in JSON and blank in CSV. Retrieval and verification dates are dates of research, not legal effective dates. Website copyright years and search-engine crawl dates are not document revision dates. Current-linked guidance may omit exceptions or lag an ordinance change. No individual project's classification, required design professional, adopted code edition, fee or turnaround is determined by this study. Confirm current requirements with the reviewing office for the actual project. The Madison alteration webpage describes professional signatures broadly, while its linked application uses scope-dependent signature language. This comparison does not resolve professional-practice thresholds or infer an exemption. The article expressly directs the reader to confirm project-specific professional involvement. ## Key interpretive safeguards - Naperville's painting/carpeting exception concerns build-out work. It does not erase a separate business-occupancy application trigger. - Madison's zoning-only occupancy route requires all four published conditions together. The prior use is the most recent previously approved zoning use. - The site's no-change condition includes bicycle parking. That does not mean every tenant must install bicycle racks. - Zoning use and building-code occupancy classification are distinct inputs. - Madison's minor-alteration material applies to conditional-use or planned-development sites. It is not a universal process for every remodel. - Published withhold and redraft procedures describe what happens under those conditions; the study measures no actual cases. - Absence of a topic from this selected sample is not proof of an exemption. ## Privacy The dataset contains only policy-level paraphrases and source metadata. It includes no project addresses, applicant names, owner names, case identifiers, telephone numbers, email addresses or personal contact details. Blank forms were inspected without completing or submitting them. ## Reproducible totals - Observations: 20 - Jurisdictions: 2 - Official sources: 6 (5 webpages and 1 blank PDF application) - Naperville, IL: 7 observations - Madison, WI: 13 observations - Stated requirements: 13 - Official guidance: 2 - Documented processes: 2 - Form-field groups: 3 - Actual correction cases or project outcomes: 0 - Sources without an explicit publication/revision date: 6 - Observations without a known source date: 20 ## Data dictionary - id: Stable observation ID; preserve across revisions. - jurisdiction / state: Municipal reviewing authority represented by the source, not statewide applicability. - project_review_type: Local review or workflow category. - reviewer_check: Concise paraphrase of the documented instruction or field. The label does not imply direct observation of reviewer behavior. - applicability: Trigger or scope qualification needed to interpret the check. - evidence_category: stated_requirement, official_guidance, documented_process or form_field, as defined above. - source_id: Join key into the source registry. - source_url: Original public municipal URL. - source_locator: Heading, numbered guide item or one-based PDF page/field. - source_date: Explicit publication/revision date, when known; null or blank otherwise. - source_version: Honest description of the version inspected. - retrieved_date: Original collection date. - outcome_status: Explicitly not observed for every row. The JSON source registry additionally records verification_date and verification_status. These describe the October 14 source recheck, not a municipal endorsement. ## Reuse and updating The CSV and JSON contain the same 20 observation records. The JSON also provides the sources and data dictionary. Preserve this dated snapshot when a source changes; create a new version and record the substantive change. The article is an accessible interpretation of these rows, while the official sources remain the authority for their own published instructions.