One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that verifies an integrated circuit (IC) chip layout. During operation, the system receives a layout of an IC chip after the layout has gone through a place-and-route operation. Next, the system performs a lithography compliance checking (LCC) operation on the layout to detect lithography hotspots within the layout, wherein each lithography hotspot is associated with a local routing pattern around the lithography hotspot. Next, for each detected lithography hotspot, the system compares the associated local routing pattern against a hotspot database to determine if the local routing pattern matches an entry in the hotspot database, which stores a set of known hotspot configurations. If so, the system corrects the lithography hotspot using correction guidance information associated with the hotspot configuration stored in the hotspot database. Otherwise, the system corrects the lithography hotspot by performing a local rip-up and reroute on the local routing pattern, iteratively, until achieving convergence or given number of iterations.