This Division is the point of contact for persons seeking to rezone property, obtain conditional use permits, request variations, and subdivide property within unincorporated McHenry County.

Other division responsibilities and activities include:

• Assigning addresses for homes and businesses;
• Conducting site plan reviews of certain projects;
• Creating, updating, and maintaining geographic, environmental, and land use data for analysis, custom mapping, and the PlanDev Viewer (interactive GIS zoning map);
• Developing and carrying out long-range, and subarea plans, as well as conducting special studies. Examples include the 2030 & Beyond Plan, the 2030 Comprehensive Plan, the Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy, the Fox Valley Corridor Plan, and the Green Infrastructure Plan, and the Historic Preservation Plan [PDF].  See also: Overview of plans and planning documents.
• Determining status of parcels and structures under the Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) and drafting 'buildability' and 'rebuild' letters;
• Issuing administrative variations;
• Issuing temporary use permits;
• Maintaining the county's Official Zoning Maps;
• Processing zoning applications for conditional uses, planned development proposals, reclassification of zoning requests, subdivision proposals, and variation requests;
• Providing support to the McHenry County Hearing Officer and the Zoning Board of Appeals.
• Providing support to the McHenry County Historic Preservation Commission (HPC) and the Agricultural Conservation Easement and Farmland Protection Commission (ACE).
• Reviewing building permit applications for development regulation compliance.

Plan Dev Viewer

The County's interactive map has zoning district information for unincorporated areas. Additional data you can access includes: current land use, comprehensive-planned land use, agricultural protection areas, soils, water resources, flood hazard areas, parcel data, and more. 

Solar Farm Map - This map is updated periodically.

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