Today is April 8th, 2026, and we welcome everybody to the Planning, Building, Zoning, and Environment Committee.

In addition to being able to attend in person, remote attendance has been made available to the public via Zoom at the link on the agenda.

This meeting is being recorded through Zoom.

Per County Board Rules and the Open Meetings Act, attendance via remote means is permitted for qualifying reasons as long as the majority of committee members are physically present, and we do have a quorum.

We have been notified in advance by members Schlick and Kenizhnik that they want to attend remotely for work reasons, and we've been notified in advance by Member Peterson that she wanted to attend remotely due to an illness.

So we a physical quorum is present, so they be they may be marked as present and are eligible to vote on matters before the committee today.

As a reminder to members attending remotely, please ensure your camera is on at all times.

All right.

And to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Is there any addenda to the agenda?

Just open up.

Oh.

Can I get a roll call, please?

Yes.

Chair Altenberg?

Here.

Member Campos?

Member Frank?

Member Kniezek is not online yet.

She said here.

I think you're on mute, Linda.

Member Schlick is not online yet.

Member Wasick.

Okay.

Thank you.

Is there any addenda to the agenda?

No addenda to the agenda.

Do we have any public comment?

No public comment today.

Okay.

No chairs remarks today.

Any unfinished business?

No unfinished business.

Okay.

Can I get a motion for the consent agenda?

Motion by Member Campo, second by member Frank.

All in favor.

Aye.

Okay.

Motion passes.

We're moving on to 8.2.

Environmental sustainability.

We are welcoming Robin Halgram who is our sustainability programs manager.

And Jesse Altman, a policy analyst from CMAP.

Thanks for joining us.

So we have a presentation by the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, CMAP, on the comprehensive climate action plan for Greater Chicago.

Welcome.

Good morning, everybody.

Robin Holgram, Sustainability Programs Manager.

And with me today is a guest from the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, who's a policy analyst, Jesse Altman.

Today he'll be giving an informational presentation on the brand new comprehensive climate action plan for Greater Chicago, which identifies key actions needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from all major sources and align the Greater Chicago region with national net zero emission goals by 2050.

I currently represent Lake County on CMAP's Climate Committee, and I participated in both content working groups and a review of this plan as part of serving on that committee.

The Lake County Board Strategic Plan identifies sustainable environment as a strategic priority with the performance measure of enhancing climate resiliency through long-term planning.

This plan is designed to give each county in the Greater Chicago region specific recommendations for decarbonization at the community scale rather than only our own operations.

By relying on this in on this guidance by CMAP, Lake County can achieve large savings by avoiding the cost to develop a Lake County climate action plan.

And I'll also wish everybody a happy Earth Month.

Thank you.

All right.

Morning, everyone.

As Robin mentioned, my name is Jesse Altman.

I'm a policy analyst with CMAP.

Thank you for the opportunity to present on our comprehensive climate action plan today.

This project, which was funded in part by the US EPA, has been a collaborative planning effort between CMAP, the Metropolitan Mayor's Caucus, and the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission.

So climate change is here, but so is our plan to act.

Rising temperatures are fueling more frequent storms, flooding, and poor air quality, driving up costs and harming health, our economy, and the natural systems we depend on.

Climate action plan maps out a path to cut greenhouse gas and air pollution, helping reduce these impacts.

The plan focuses on what has the biggest impact, builds on what's already working either within the region or in other states, and strengthens our collective influence at the state and federal levels.

It also includes tools and case studies communities can use to take action locally.

Lake County, for example, is already working to advance climate action in the region with a number of ongoing initiatives and completed plans guiding those efforts.

Lake County supports Switch Together, a group buy program that helps homeowners and small businesses buy and install different clean energy technologies at discounted prices.

The county's sea pace program has been providing commercial property owners with secure financing for energy efficiency, renewable energy, and other projects since 2022.

The county set a net zero GHG emissions goal to reduce county government operations emissions and is now working to implement their roadmap to decarbonization.

And finally, Lake County created an urban and community forestry strategic plan last year, which will help the region further sequester more carbon in the county's growing urban forests.

So today I'll give an overview on Greater Chicago's emissions, walk through the scenarios that chart the region's path to 2050.

I'll then dive into some of the plan's core actions and wrap up with our next steps for plan implementation.

So the Climate Action Plan maps out a path to cut greenhouse gas and air pollution across the entire Greater Chicago region.

This 13 county region produces about 152 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent annually, and three sectors drive most of the region's emissions.

Buildings, largely from fossil fuel heating and homes and businesses, and transportation, primarily gasoline and diesel use for passenger and freight travel.

Smaller but important contributions come from waste, agriculture and water systems, shown in orange, while forests and wetlands remove 2% of emissions through carbon sequestration.

So when we look at emissions from a geographic perspective, we see that local context matters.

While Cook County produces the most total emissions, industrial lake and Porter counties in Northwest Indiana have by far the highest emissions per person.

This highlights the need for strategies tailored to each county's unique profile.

So next, I want to quickly walk through recent emissions trends and the future scenarios explored in the plan.

Looking back to 2005 from 2020, Greater Chicago reduced emissions by about 20%, a significant and rapid start in just 15 years.

Relative to 2005 levels, the plan sets a long-term reduction target of 80 to 85% by 2050, shown here by the blue star.

This target aligns with national modeling, which assumes roughly 75 to 85% gross reductions by mid-century, with the remainder offset through carbon sequestration.

Similarly, our plan seeks to maximize local natural sequestration through forests, wetlands, and soils, while recognizing that greater sequestration potential exists elsewhere in the country.

This goal is consistent with on to 2050, CMAP's comprehensive plan for Northeastern Illinois, the Metropolitan Mayor's Caucus Climate Action Plan, and the City of Chicago's decarbonization targets.

So through our modeling, we examine future emissions trajectories to understand how much how much more action will be required to meet our goal.

The current policy or business as usual scenario, which primarily reflects Illinois's Climate and Equitable Jobs Act, or CEGA, would reduce emissions by about 36% by 2050, even with continued population and job growth.

And while that's meaningful progress, it's not enough to reach our target.

The plan's full implementation scenario includes over 30 modeled strategies across seven sectors and shows us a path to an 86% reduction in emissions by 2050.

The scenario builds on precedent, expanding policies and programs that already exist in our region or have been successfully implemented elsewhere.

It also draws on benchmarks from state and national models.

Achieving this scenario requires ambitious action across all levels of government, including renewed and expanded federal policies that support larger economic and technological shifts.

Looking closer at the full implementation scenario, we can isolate the actions that could be implemented by state and local governments.

These actions alone could achieve a 58% reduction in emissions by 2050 without any new federal policy.

This is a powerful demonstration of what we can accomplish on our own in partnership with state governments.

Buildings present the largest opportunity for state and local action, shown by the two shades of yellow.

And transportation reductions are smaller but still significant, shown by the light blue bar.

And local governments' involvement in making zoning and land use decisions are sure to help with these efforts.

So as I mentioned earlier, there are numerous strategies included in the scenarios and the plan itself.

However, key strategies that define the region's path towards its reduction target can be summed up into six core actions.

The first core action is to clean and modernize the grid.

While strategies throughout the plan vary in scale and impact, clean electricity is the foundation of the region's decarbonization roadmap and reducing energy demand makes that transition more achievable.

This chart illustrates the shifts in energy demand by fuel type that are needed under the plan implementation scenario.

We see by 2050 that natural gas and gasoline use decrease as our reliance on electricity increases.

Achieving these shifts will require both accelerating the transition to clean energy and building a clean electric grid that has enough capacity to handle the growing demand.

This means modernizing both the generation mix and the local distribution system and building more transmission and storage to fully and reliably support the electrification of the greater Chicago region's largest sectors, buildings, transportation, and industry.

The next core action is to improve building efficiency.

As we look to decarbonize our buildings, we cannot solely rely on electrification.

We also need to make buildings use less energy, which in turn dramatically reduces the need for new power generation and makes energy bills more affordable.

This entails weatherizing roughly half of all residences and nearly all commercial buildings.

Weatherizing means making buildings retain heat or stay cool more efficiently through interventions like window upgrades, insulating roofs, and fixing other building envelope leaks, as well as installing more efficient HVAC systems.

It also entails applying building performance standards to nearly half a million of the 13 county regions' largest buildings, which is a policy mechanism that can help advance weatherization and energy efficiency improvements as well as electrification.

In addition to decarbonizing through weatherization and energy efficiency, transitioning to clean heat in both existing and new buildings is equally important.

This core action includes strategies that shift buildings off natural gas and onto electricity for all its energy needs, such as policies like requiring all electric new construction and building performance standards since they also support electrification, as well as other programs and incentives that shift most appliance sales to electric models by 2035 and support the installation of more than 3.5 million heat pumps by 2050.

And this is equivalent to approximately 150,000 heat pumps per year.

So shifting gears towards the transportation sector, the next core action is reimagined mobility.

The region needs to achieve a 5% reduction in vehicle miles traveled or VMT growth by 2035 and 16% by 2050, equivalent to a 12% reduction in per capita VMT by 2050.

Throughout our transportation working group meetings, we heard strong support for reducing VMT and shifting travel to more efficient modes as these strategies bring real co-benefits to our region and critically reduce the anticipated strain on the electricity grid in response to the EV transition.

Reimagining mobility across the region requires investing in transit to increase ridership and building our networks of active transportation infrastructure to increase biking, walking, and rolling.

Advancing new pricing mechanisms to reduce peak period car trips and shortened travel distances can also contribute meaningfully to VMT reduction.

We heard through community engagement about the significant barriers to EV ownership, especially for residents with lower incomes and less resources to adopt new technologies.

This challenge highlights the importance of investing in infrastructure that facilitates safe and easy access to transit, as well as land use changes that support transit oriented development, ultimately reducing dependence on cars.

The next core action is electrify vehicles, which focuses on transitioning vehicles of all types, ranging from passenger vehicles, freight trucks, and public fleets to electric and zero emissions technologies.

While the plan touches on the transition for all vehicle types, passenger vehicles play a key role.

To reach the plan's emissions reduction target, all three states will need 100% of new light duty vehicles sold by 2035 and beyond to be EVs.

Cumulatively, this would mean the region would need to exceed 10 million light duty EVs by 2050.

To achieve these sales numbers, the plan focuses on two key electrification strategies EV sales requirements and EV sales incentives.

The last core action is to decarbonize industry, which encompasses strategies that aim to electrify industrial processes and shift the region toward low carbon manufacturing through energy efficiency upgrades, process electrification, and cleaner fuels.

For the 13 county region, this means cutting manufacturing energy demand by 15% by 2050 through investments in energy efficiency standards, technical assistance, and incentives.

It also means electrifying low temperature manufacturing processes like process heating and boilers and requiring all iron and steel production to be net zero by 2050.

As this transition occurs, federal, state, and local governments have a unique opportunity to lead by example and help grow demand, making it more economical for private companies to create or use these materials.

This can be achieved through buy clean programs, which establish procurement policies requiring low emission materials like steel and cement to be used in major public projects.

So while I just ran through six core actions that summarize some of the strategies with the greatest impact to help the region reach its emissions reduction uh emissions reduction target, we encourage you to download the plan or visit our webpage to learn more about the other ways the region can reduce emissions and the benefits of taking climate action.

To wrap things up, uh the release of this plan marks the transition from plan development to early implementation and broader engagement.

And there are several projects that are currently underway or upcoming that will continue continue to advance our work.

First off, we're developing a set of materials to make the plan more digestible for different audiences.

This will include developing two pages, county profiles, and policy-focused articles that highlight key insights and opportunities.

CMAP has also started the process to create a 2025 regional greenhouse gas inventory, which provides the quantitative basis for tracking progress and updating targets.

Relatedly, we will be developing the climate action plan status report next spring, where we'll be reporting out on implementation progress.

And CMAP is also in its final year of our energy to communities projects with Comed, Respiratory Health Association, and Argonne and Oak Ridge National Labs, where we're using their models to shed light on transportation decarbonization pathways and grid impacts.

So that's all I've got.

Thanks so much for your time, and I'm happy to take any questions.

Thank you.

Thanks for coming on, Jesse.

This is a very comprehensive report.

So you're probably aware that as Lake County, we only have jurisdiction overall of our facilities in unincorporated Lake County.

So where or how could CMAP help the county achieve these goals outside of our jurisdiction?

I mean, a lot of large buildings are not in unincorporated Lake County.

They're they're in municipalities.

So how could you work with us to achieve our goals and then to broaden the uh the outreach to the rest of the county?

Yeah, thank you.

That's a great question.

I think CMAP is not only a partner to the counties, but also a partner to municipalities and our close partnership with the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus, I think gives us greater access to those municipalities.

So I think in this instance, there's an opportunity for all of us to collaborate and determine who who holds the appropriate jurisdiction and who can provide the most support in order to support uh initiatives like building decarbonization, um, as well as you know, CMAP has a number of different data and other resources that I think we can provide the county and uh work to coordinate with the municipalities in order to advance these initiatives.

Um, as well as you know, CMAP has a number of different data and other resources that I think we can provide uh the county and uh work to coordinate with the municipalities in order to advance these initiatives.

Um any specific requests I think we can work together to find find a way to move move progress forward.

And and I think I would I think we'd like to see some uh tangible connection points with Robin and our program here, and where Robin can report back to us saying, Oh, we're working with CMAP to get more EVs in our fleet, or just we have some very specific goals in our own plan that I think you could help us with, but we're not quite sure how that would work.

So uh if there are some um sort of places where we can uh connect, I think that would be good to uh highlight as we move forward with this.

Thank you.

Of course.

Yeah, I could see jumping on to what you're saying.

Um the county maybe taking the lead with CMAP and holding some kind of seminars or holding some kind of you know, gatherings or even uh doing a presentation at like the League of Municipalities.

Um, you know, really pushing out some of these goals and and having discussions about how we can work with our municipalities to you know achieve make these deadlines and uh you know uh achieve these goals in uh in a you know in a very planned fashion.

Um member Frank.

Thank you, Chair.

Thanks for being here.

Thank you for the presentation.

Um I think where we are with you know our our current goals and progress and and what you're highlighting in terms of hey, these are some areas that we need to focus on to get to where we need to go.

It feels a little bit like we set those goals in motion and looked at targets for improvement a couple years ago, and the growth of the energy usage by current and future planned data centers feels to me like a significant step backwards for our efforts to reduce our carbon output.

And I'm just wondering if CMAP has started to look at that, if there's a measurement in place, if there I know that the state is looking at regulations that at a law that might give local uh authorities a greater hand in regulation, but it's very concerning to me that you know, for years we were told, hey, you don't need 256k in your phone, you can buy a phone with less memory, put everything in the cloud.

We're as a county organization, we've been shifting towards cloud data usage, all those things, irrespective of the impact and the growth of these data centers that may or may not be supporting cloud usage exclusively, they may my concern is that they have a undefined use or necessity with a huge impact on us.

And I'm just want to know if you could share with us where CMAP is at with those questions right now.

Yeah, of course.

Um within the plan, there is a call-out box that directly addresses data centers and demand within the energy generation chapter.

Um, so we are thinking about that, and we have been thinking about it as we develop this plan.

Uh we're also we are also following and keeping track of of the power act and how that's going through the legislature right now, and then are doing our best to try and understand what the implications of that might be on our own planning efforts and our climate action efforts.

Um yeah, we we definitely appreciate the concern about data centers and are trying to explore ways that we can get a better grasp on that and incorporate that into our own planning efforts.

So uh that's a great point.

And I'll make sure to bring that back to our team so we can think more about it.

Thank you.

Thanks, Chair.

Thank you.

Member Campos.

Thank you, Chair.

Um, just looking at one of your slides, um, where it says a 50% of like part of the stated goal is a 50%.

Um weather as 50% of all residential buildings.

Do we know how many are not weatherized right now?

If it's even a number that we know where we're starting from.

Yeah, I'm not sure if we have the information, but I can I can ask our.

Because that that would be a good number to watch, so you know exactly where you're starting from, you know.

Um okay, now the Illinois Environmental Conservation Code now applies to uh new construction.

Uh I'm wondering and the separate municipalities can adopt stretch codes that go farther than what the state of Illinois requires.

Uh the only one that I know of currently right now that is looking at that in Lake County is Highland Park.

I know they're looking at uh adopting stretch codes, and I'm wondering if where you can take a look at that as a county.

I and to John's point uh earlier, there's no large buildings are out usually within the municipalities, and if Island Park is the only one that's uh looking at implementing that, maybe we could uh encourage the other municipalities to do so.

Um wondering if Lake County, if not already, um if we could adopt stretch codes as well for our for our uh jurisdiction uh that would encourage the other municipalities to adopt that as well because I know our next um agenda item is putting our regulations and things so that other municipalities can implement.

Um is that something we can look at?

Is that something we are looking at?

I believe the uh planning building development folks would know if it's already in the works.

Um but I do know that that is a strategy inside this plan is to is to adopt stretch codes beyond the the standards.

Correct.

Okay.

Okay.

There's many, many, many suggestions and and options to to go at this.

And CMAP has said that they will try and um personalize it to each each county.

So what's gonna be most important for us as well as our municipalities to be working on based off of what we have here?

Wonderful.

It sounds great.

Um I was reading the stretch codes when I was reading um up on them.

Um seems as though they're really heavily focused towards state uh state controlled buildings and government funded buildings.

Am I incorrect on that?

Sorry, uh IECC, the Illinois Environmental Conservation Code.

Am I am I incorrect in saying that?

I'm not sure.

Okay.

Is it possible?

We can uh have staff get back to you on that call.

Absolutely.

Yeah, that'd be great.

Maybe I misread something, but uh yeah, that would be it's definitely something we'd be interested in looking more into, and I think uh whatever information can come back, that'd be great on two of those points.

Okay.

Member Wasick.

And stretch codes are a great start.

I I think that we have a universal system of updated building codes that stress energy efficiency.

That's that's a good place to start on a state level.

But speaking of state legislation, uh, will CMAP work with us to say, okay, let's let's enhance our ability to uh update our fleet to have more EVs, which you know it always helps when there's more incentives.

We're seeing a lot of federal incentives go away, a lot of grants to just kind of evaporate for us to do this.

So can CMAP also provide sort of the legislative uh input where it where you could tell us is like, well, I think we really need a state law on this, uh, in addition to the ordinances that we're already having, and we already have a climate action plan here, um, so that we we can work on it and we can lobby with other counties to say, okay, we need a state, you know, suite of incentives to increase the number of EV vehicles in our fleet.

So I guess the bottom line question is like can CMAP provide that sort of legislative um background to say, okay, let's let's advocate for these kind of laws to get to our goals.

I can take that one.

So uh each year I usually present at least a few uh bits of legislation for the legislative committee to be that environmental sustainability focus.

And I do reach out to CMAP as one of the as one group um because I know that they do a lot of at least background research on things.

And now I can more specifically ask can it also be in line with uh with the current planning efforts?

What else do we need and who else can we talk to?

Um so I know they do a lot of background uh research and I tend to use it each year.

Yeah, and we're we're really grateful for that, Robin.

It's very helpful for us, but also consider other partnerships.

So we're also partners with the Lake County Municipal League, uh the Metro Poland Mayor's Caucus, which you mentioned, and and there's still you know environmental groups that want to be involved in this too, and they can also leverage our lobbying ability to get these laws passed, and we have some partnerships there as well.

It's why I brought this up is like it's it's sort of all hands-on-deck sort of effort, I think.

Right.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's discouraging to see so many federal incentives evaporating because people, a lot of people who were interested in getting electric vehicles, you know, they're more expensive, and it was a great carrot for people to know that they were gonna get these rebates.

And it was a great carrot for people to know that they were gonna get these rebates.

And um, you know, people who were thinking about doing this.

Um, I think there's other countries that are far more ahead of us when I travel to other countries.

There's a lot of electric vehicles, more than we have, and I feel like we're gonna just keep falling behind because our government isn't encouraging that type of you know, incentive for people.

So I think there, you know, whatever ways we can encourage people to think about these things, to think about electric vehicles, to think about solar, to think about you know, a lot of different ways that we can reduce our output.

Um I think you know, we should be looking at all those things.

So, any other questions from anybody?

Okay.

Um, so thank you very much.

It was a great presentation.

And um we look forward to hearing more about it in the future.

So we're gonna move to 8.3.

We continue with Robin.

Is a presentation on a new program design for a sustainable model ordinance engagement program.

Hello, everybody, Robin Hallgrim, Sustainability Programs Manager.

Uh today I'm presenting on a program design for sustainable model ordinance engagement program.

This was a goal in the county board's strategic plan to implement a program encouraging adoption of our own sustainability regulations to other public entities in Lake County to encourage adoption.

I'll be presenting the different sections of the internal staff manual for how the program will be operated.

There is no uh official action required with this one today.

All right.

So in the 2023 strategic plan, there was a goal to implement an engagement uh plan.

And the idea for the program is twofold.

It's meant to showcase the regulatory sustainability efforts of the county to our public partners and residents, and it's meant to encourage land managing departments to consider sustainability language into regulations while they are still in development.

So what this program does is it implements a framework to catalog sustainable ordinances, assist others with adoption, and track the implementation of our sustainability regulations with municipal and public stakeholders.

Oh, sorry.

Oh, come on.

All right.

So for for this program, we need to define what a sustainable model ordinance is.

Not all ordinances involve sustainability or environmental protection.

Think of the difference between a regulation for bird-friendly building design versus speed limits.

Even though speed limits will have some environmental impact on emissions or biodiversity, the main intent of a speed limit regulation has nothing to do with environmental protection.

Bird-friendly building design is very clearly meant to involve sustainability concepts and environmentally friendly best practices.

So we made this definition to narrow our scope of focus.

Those ordinances and regulations, best practices which integrate environmental sustainability into the practice of local government management by reducing or reducing negative impacts on human and environmental health and advanced communities' climate and greenhouse gas reduction goals.

So we're trying to center in on that language that will intentionally minimize waste, prevent pollution, maintain habitats, and increase energy efficiency.

I'll be using the acronym SMO during this presentation to mean sustainable model ordinances under this definition.

When we think of who's creating these regulations, we look to the list on the right.

These are our land managing departments who influence regulations at the county level, and they are the teams that we involved in the development of this process.

So we got county administration, planning, building, and development, division of transportation, stormwater management, facilities and construction, environmental health, and public works.

All right, this is a flow chart demonstrating that cataloging process will that will be uh sorry, will be expanded on a little bit more uh throughout the presentation.

So there will be a master spreadsheet of all of our public entities that we want to conduct outreach with and record their responses.

So first up is notifying.

Uh, we're trying to make sure that our public partners leadership is being directly emailed, being presented to at regional meetings, and have access to information about SMOs on the county website at all times.

Next is surveying, sending out short questionnaires to leadership and relevant staff to inquire on their level of interest in adopting a new SMO, their interest in receiving assistance from the county for adoption, and over time whether or not adoption has been finalized.

Next is assist, providing support in the form of fact sheets, guest presentations, lessons learned, et cetera, to uh to those in to those parties that share that they were interested in receiving uh receiving assistance have has through the survey.

And then finally is record adoption.

If the entity used our SMO language to create their own version, we want to be able to mark them down and show the the area over which the county's regulations have taken effect.

So for those regulations we've already passed, we have developed an inventory tool to be hosted on the website, and it organizes our currently available sustainable model ordinances so that any community can easily access our text and adopt it to their own purposes.

And the idea is that every time there's a new SMO, it will be added to this inventory, and we can show Lake County as this overall model and guide for all kinds of initiatives each time we pass something new.

Um this is an image provided by communications for what this inventory could look like on our website.

Each SMO is going to have its own title and category.

So let's say a community wants to learn more about bird-friendly building design.

They will also see that we have ordinances for native trees and plants or landscaping.

Maybe they want to check those out too.

And we have completed our inventory as of today.

So this is something we're ready to upload immediately and do some promotion around the program as before new ones come out.

So here it's kind of breaking another flow chart to break down the previous one even further.

Um, and these are the steps that we would take when a brand new SMR is passed by the board.

So after it gets passed, it gets uploaded to that general inventory with its own category and link to our code.

Uh we notify those specific public entities with an e-blast and then send the follow-up survey to record their interest.

Do you want to maybe adopt this?

Are you interested in getting uh assistance with adoption?

Or do you already have this in your code somewhere?

Um, and then we record those requests uh for interest, uh support for the policy or the the ordinance, and then those those requests for assistance.

Now we know that sometimes ordinance making can take a little while.

Uh so the idea is to check in with those interested parties a couple times a year and and see if they need anything new.

Um we record any assistance that's been provided uh if, and then uh over over the time say, hey, did you did you ever go and finish adopting this, record those adoptions and celebrate milestones over time.

All right, so the final part of the manual includes a list of expectations for land managing departments, the sustainability programs manager, and for communications.

The program uh design has been sent to each of these teams and it's been reviewed, so there should be no big surprises from what's being asked of them.

If a regulation has a clearly sustainable lens to it, uh sending the draft content for a language review uh to the sustainability programs manager during development, compile and provide a year-ahead list of regulations that are likely to go to committee discussion during during that next calendar year uh sent during the preceding November.

Um sustainability programs manager would determine whether the regulations going to committee meet that definition of an SMO, and then uploading all of the information needed to go into that uh inventory within five or so business days before being uh before being passed by the county board so that it can be uploaded to the to the online inventory as soon as it uh as soon as it is passed.

Um, this is the timeline for what I can imagine would be the the next steps.

We have our presentation today.

Would love to be able to upload our inventory during the same month, and then departments would uh owe their their year look ahead this November during 2026.

All right, and that is all.

Okay.

Member Frank.

Thank you, Chair.

Robin, I'm super excited that you brought this forward.

I think this is great, honestly.

Um I think we've talked a lot about our efforts and our work serving as uh uh leading and as a model, but to be able to showcase it and to develop more uh model ordinances in this way uh is really exciting and uh a great product for us to put out there for all the great thinking and and great leadership that we have on our team.

So thank you.

I'm excited.

Thank you.

Yeah, I agree with member Frank.

I'm very excited about this, and it really gives a lot more detail to our constituents.

They're really able to understand fully where we stand on things, how we're you know, our thought on all these different areas.

So I think it's it's a really great thing.

Member Wasick.

Thank you.

And Robin, just for clarification, I think this is great.

Um I'm seeing this as a communications tool uh with the municipalities to say, hey, look, we have an ordinance on burger buildings, um, and to encourage them to like look at the language, somewhat adopted if they can.

Uh is am I on the right track there?

You are, you are.

Okay.

It's it's about and the follow-up as well.

Right.

Twice a year.

It's like, well, you said you were interested.

I see said you wanted assistance.

Can I help?

Can we move this forward?

Okay, great.

It's good work.

Thank you.

All right, terrific.

Member Campos.

Thank you, Chair.

Um, yeah, I just want to say all the great work.

This also uh helps us as county board members talk to our uh respected mayors uh in our district and gets us off your guys' back so we don't have to email you.

Hey, can we get that?

Can we get that ordinance that we want to talk about there in that meeting?

We can just pull up up on the website, and that's that's really great.

I appreciate all the work.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yes, thank you.

You're doing tremendous work on so many things that we care about and that are in our strategic plan.

And you know, your your position is really invaluable to a lot of the things we want to accomplish.

So yeah, member Chair Hart.

Thank you.

Uh, also just want to say thank you to you and also the rest of the team because I think the county has acted as sort of uh I might say a role model, right?

We do solar programs, we do a lot of the work because we understand that the municipalities don't have um the the depth of staff and and knowledge.

So by us kind of um doing that work, it really does the work for all the municipalities and and other counties, quite frankly, right?

So just want to say thank you to you and this to people in the other departments too, who really take on that role as uh as a leader in those things that are important to us.

So thank you, Robin.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

All right, I think no other questions.

All right, thank you so much.

Okay, we are gonna move on to stormwater management 8.4.

We're gonna welcome Sharon Asterby, water resources professional from SMC.

We have a joint resolution authorizing an emergency appropriation of 41 41 million 40.

Excuse me.

Oh, it is okay.

41,043 and 83 cents for the Nippersine Creek project by the Stormwater Management Commission, funded through the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Hazard Mitigation Grant Program and administered the by the Illinois Emergency Management Agency.

Welcome, Sharon.

Good morning, thank you.

Um my name is Sharon Osterby.

I'm a water resource professional with Lake County SMC.

Um, this joint resolution request was brought forward in 2024.

Um the funding will actually support a risk assessment for a structure-specific risk assessment in uh Lake County, specifically Grant Township and the Fox Lake area.

It was an area that was identified by the Fox River Flood Commission as an area with high concentration of NFIP claims, and that's a good way to quantify flood damage.

Um we're partnering with the Illinois State Water Survey on this project, and um we'll be working on it and completing it this year.

So the request is for the emergency appropriation.

Again, it was requested in 24, but the funds were not established in an account and so or carried over.

So that's why we're here for a second request.

Okay, great.

First of all, can I get a motion and a second?

Motion by Member Frank, second by member compost.

Um anybody have any questions for Sharon?

Okay, all in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Okay, motion passes.

Thank you very much.

We are moving on to 8.5.

We are gonna welcome Eric Wagner.

Um Natalia Fick and Krista Barclay Braun.

Okay.

So we have an ordinance amending chapter 151 unified development ordinance of the lake of Lake County, Illinois, Code of Ordinances relating to logistics facilities and unincorporated Lake County.

Can I get a motion, please?

Motion by Member Wassex, second by Member Frank.

Take it away.

Good morning, Eric Wagner, Planning Building Development Director.

This morning I'll introduce Natalie Fick, who's our planner who did uh the lion share of work on this set of amendments.

Uh, she'll be assisted by Krista, who'll be back in the in the room shortly.

Um, but the work that you're gonna view this morning and discuss and take action on is the culmination of quite a bit of best practices research and uh time spent with staff um looking at the different ways that we could regulate logistics facilities.

So take it away, Natalia.

All right, thanks, Eric.

Good morning, everyone.

Um, as Eric already introduced me, my name's Natalia, and today we just want to share um essentially the amendments that we've kind of gathered together for new standards for logistics facilities within Lake County.

Um, this is just we'll run it through a little bit of background.

Um, the proposed amendments they were attached as part of an exhibit.

If you had the chance to review those, they go into specifications of the use standards and setbacks and things like that.

Um, and then um we'll talk a little bit about next steps as well.

Um, so a little bit of background why we're here today.

Lake County Code currently does not have specific standards for logistics facilities or centers.

Um, and they differ from uh traditional warehouses, right?

Um, there's more specific land use impacts that are not currently addressed in the code.

Um, noise, they have an increase in traffic, significant truck traffic generated daily when they're um like distribution fulfillment centers, when they're picking up orders, dropping off orders for customers, and this is um because of the growth in e-commerce, right?

We've seen that throughout the region.

Um the increased need for these distribution centers, and these just want to know these are not data centers, they differ from data centers, they are um storing cold goods like market goods for customers to be distributed to.

Um, and then the environmental effects of these uh facilities as well.

Um, a little bit of a process timeline, August 12, 2025.

We were direct the county board directed the ZBA to conduct a public hearing on logistics centers, and then February 2026, not too long ago, these draft amendments were reviewed by the zoning board of appeals.

Um, no public comment was received uh during the hearing, and the ZBA had one, they approved it with one modification, which we'll share with you in the um upcoming slides.

Okay, and then we'll pivot now into the proposed amendments, and this is a little bit of a high-level overview.

We did attach the exhibits, um, exhibit A that goes into a really detailed list of the amendments.

So, as logistic facilities, they don't currently exist within the code, so we're adding a new definition.

Um, this is a little bit long, so bear with me here.

Um, but let's just we're going to refer to it as a building or group of buildings on the same lot used for the indoor short-term storage of goods, products, and materials, and/or receipt of bulk products and separation and distribution of those products to another warehouse or logistics use or to individual end use consumers.

A logistics facility may include value-added services between a supplier and its customers, specific to those goods, products, and materials, such as breaking down of large orders from a single source into smaller orders, break bulk functions, product mixing, sorting, packaging, cross docking, order fulfillment, order returns, the consolidation of several orders into one large order for distribution to several recipients, and or vice versa.

And the underlined section that you see there, that is what the zoning board of appeals, they recommended that we specify a little bit more.

One of the members um brought up a concern that essentially a developer may interpret this as a data center, and that's something that Eric Wagner um we just tweaked the language a little bit more so they wouldn't be able to find a loophole to treat it as a data center.

So we're adding that, and then we're also adding a definition for warehouse, which we didn't have before.

We did have mini warehouse, which refers to like a self-um storage, like a self-storage facility, um, but we're adding warehouse as well, and that's a lot simpler, just a building or structure or part thereof used principally for the long-term storage of goods and merchandise.

All right, and then so logistics facilities.

We do differentiate between small and large, and those will have different standards, but in referring to all of them, um, these are some of the standards that we created when talking among staff and discussing with engineering as well.

So they brought up a concern, they don't want any new impervious surface added within the regulatory floodplain.

So that's something we're adding within the use standard sections, increased setbacks for loading docks, so they must be 250 feet from the property line of a nearest sensitive neighboring land use.

What is a nearest sensitive neighboring land use?

Um, essentially a sensitive receptor, so a church, synagogue, residence, a dormitory, college, um, place of worship, public park, playground, any sort of child care facility, a hospital, long-term care facility, retirement nursing homes, community centers.

So essentially increased setback for sensitive neighboring land uses.

Um, a parking study will be required.

Uh, so they have to essentially estimate parking demand based on the Institute of Transportation Engineers or some sort of other recommendation, which can be approved by Eric, the PBD director.

That's something they have to provide.

Uh, all components of logistics campus, so any accessory uses, so buildings, parking, drive lanes, must be located within the limited industrial or industry intense industrial zoning districts.

And so these logistics facilities, they will only be allowed with a conditional use permit within those two zoning districts, and all of them will be subject to site capacity site plan review due to the intensity and the scale of these facilities.

This is a view of the use table where it'll fit in.

Uh, so it'll be within the use category of warehousing and freight movement, as you can see in the blue underlining, we'll have small logistics facility and large logistics facility.

Uh, the main difference really between these is who is the decision making authority, small logistics facilities, so anything 50,000 square feet in gross gross floor area and under will be reviewed by the ZBA, and anything that exceeds that threshold would be a county board CUP.

All right.

So, in terms of small logistics facilities, so use standards specifically for those are just a little bit more information.

So, how these differ from large logistics facilities, they're smaller local or area fulfillment centers, primarily serving local markets.

So you might think of like a local target within your area, right?

They're kind of still fulfilling that distribution supply chain fulfillment function in a way, but it's not essentially like your ginormous one million square foot Amazon fulfillment center that you see within in Wisconsin.

Um that's how we're essentially referring to small logistics facilities, so again, serving more of that local market to nearby customers.

Again, maximum 50,000 square feet of gross floor area and delegated conditional use permit.

Uh, so ZBA will be reviewing and only allowed in the LI and II zoning districts, uh, subject to ZBA review.

And then we get into large logistics facilities.

So we imposed increased additional standards for large facilities, so anything exceeding 50,000 square feet, again, county board will be reviewing these applications.

Um they do have in addition to all the standards already listed, they need to submit an operating standards, environmental and community impact analysis during at the time of their application.

They have an increased setback, so instead of 250 feet from a sensitive neighboring land use, it's 500 feet away from again those sensitive receptors.

So the loading docks have to be located that distance away.

And then they have what's called transition landscaping areas required along the entire length of any street frontage, so along the road and other property lines.

Uh, transition landscaping areas, we require these when there is a use abutting, essentially like a residential use.

That's most oftentimes when you'll see it.

Uh, you have planting plantings that are required to act as screening or as buffering.

Uh, so in terms of large logistics facilities, they will be required along all property lines, while other uses it'll depend, they do not always have them along all property lines.

Okay, and this is what our landscaping table will look like.

So we are adding a new landscaping section for logistics facilities specifically.

Um they will be so as you can see, um just to break it down a little bit.

Proposed developing site LII.

If you're abutting a residential land use, you are required to plant two plant units per 100 linear feet.

A plant unit is composed of several components.

So one canopy tree, two understory trees, two evergreen trees, and seven shrubs.

And then instead of allowing fences, they will only they will be required to place a berm.

And depending on who kind of the censoring the neighboring land use, it'll be either a five-foot berm or a ten-foot berm.

And again, that's to help with screening and buffering from the surrounding area.

So it'll depend on the developing site essentially what your plant units are, how many, how much plant units you need to plant essentially within that transition area.

Okay.

And so that's a little bit of an overview of the proposed amendments.

The next steps, so we've already had the ZBA public hearing.

We're here today, um, gathering your feedback, and hopefully we can proceed on April 14th to Lake County Board for final action.

That's all I have.

Um, go to the F and FNA, right?

Um it doesn't.

Okay.

Straight to the board.

Okay, got it.

Okay.

Member Wasik.

Thank you.

And Eric, I might have missed this in the text, but did you have any detailed um breakdown of what environmental standards are being considered?

Because most of these logistics centers produce a lot of CO2 particle particulate emissions, then it's it's a pretty heavy load.

Did we require that as part of their environmental analysis, they submit, say, carbon footprinting or you know, a total pollution load, things like that?

The content of the environmental study is up to us.

We would direct them in terms of, and this is an administrative process.

We would direct them to in their study prepare all relevant sort of environmental types of impacts of the facility based on its location, based on the size, etc.

And so, in order to be a little flexible in terms of how we approach that with each site, we kept that open.

We kept that um undefined such that we could then require it at the level of detail and at the scope that we think is appropriate given the site.

That's why it's up to the director discretion to um to sign off on an environmental report as sufficient or not.

So I I think you're telling me that it's it's largely a discretionary uh request to get to that point, or is it actually written in?

It's required to prepare an environmental study.

The scope of that environment environmental study is defined by the department.

Okay, so you could request as like, well, okay, you're gonna have a lot of diesel traffic here.

What does that mean in terms of particularly?

Well, then that that's that's gonna be a baseline for any environmental study, but carbon footprint, for example, is one that you know we that might be required only in case of the larger projects with a lot of more uh a lot of the larger fleets in particular.

Great, thank you.

Member Frank.

Thank you, Chair.

Thanks for the work on this uh important step forward given that we had nothing in place before, right?

What on your first slide talked about um impact and or no imperviable services in a regulated floodplain?

And Sharon can tell me I'm wrong if my interpretation of this is not accurate, but you can only build so much imperviable surface before the floodplain itself actually grows because the water's got to go someplace, right?

So I'm just wondering.

It does that factor into the environmental sort of impact where the the director has sign off.

If you're building four of them independently, you know, not the same developer, but maybe four in a small area, all of a sudden it's not in the regulated floodplain, but you've got a real significant amount of impervious surface in a short period of time.

How does that factor into the approval process?

So the impervious surface regulations that are already embedded in our ordinance govern the total amount of impervious that's allowed on a given site by zoning district.

And so for the LI and II zones, there are baseline impervious surface thresholds beyond which a development can't go.

What we're saying here is that for those instances where normally under the the unified development ordinance site development regulations, certain types of drive lanes, et cetera are allowed in the floodplain.

We're saying in this particular instance, they will not be.

And as I said before, uh ISR is also regulated at a baseline for industrial development.

Because, however, both these small and large logistics facilities are also governed by a conditional use permit under certain circumstances, given the proximity of a facility to an environmental resource that could be impacted by the development, we have the ability through the condition process to impose even greater impervious surface restrictions than would otherwise be allowed for development within that zone.

Great.

Thank you for the answer, if I may, Chair, just one more question.

This speaks to the zoning approval piece.

Do you envision we'll have a future conversation about the planning piece?

Whereas, like, what are what are the counties' needs?

Like we, you know, you may get a uh a request for a development, but that's because that's what the developer wants.

What I want to know, like, what is our plan?

How much of this is necessary and appropriate for the developable parcels?

Because I think it'd be important for us to be able to say, hey, we don't need another logistics center.

So importantly, and I think I noted this when we initially teed up the proposed uh amendment process to the committee back in 2025.

The county um, as a non-home rule county, does not have the authority to ban a specific land use because we don't have the authority to do so under Illinois statute.

And so under our state's attorney's office analysis of the impact of sort of Dillon's rule on a county like ourselves, um, given that analysis, we have a responsibility to ensure that at least there's a limited number of potential sites that could be made available for these types of uses.

And so we've done that.

We've been able to ensure that there are some spots within the unincorporated Lake County that could potentially be developed with one subject to all the standards.

Beyond that, I will say that the vast majority of sites that are within the boundaries of Lake County that could be developed for a logistics facilities are located in municipalities.

And so, in some ways, even more important than us uh adopting these regulations for Lake County proper, these regulations serve potentially as a model for municipal government within Lake County, where most of these sites are located proximate to regional arterials, like the tollway, the main state highways, and so forth, where most of the logistics track traffic is occurring, you're not going to see a logistics facility at a great distance from those areas and on an unincorporated areas typically don't touch those major arterials directly, and they're a little further away from those.

And so we see this ordinance as yes, important for Lake County for those few sites that are out there, but it's also instructive to municipalities that are looking at logistics regulations where there's a greater likelihood of development of that type of land use within their borders.

Thank you.

Chair Hart.

Thank you.

That was a good question.

And you may have answered my question too.

So essentially, if I were to say, hey, I'd like to see, given the these restrictions, where one of these logistic facilities could fit within the unincorporated area, sounds like it might be quite a small area.

It is a it is a small number of sites for sure.

Okay, but you have a map that could be shared.

Okay, all right.

I think that would be helpful.

And then how do you um kind of like what we were talking about before with Robin?

So you've got these changes.

How do you communicate that to the municipalities about hey, here's our UDO?

We think this might be helpful for you just to take a look at it and tailor it for your own municipalities.

Model sustainable ordinance.

Okay, but I mean, how so you send out an email to village managers, like what does that look like?

So each different exercise that we go through that what that model engagement strategy is a little different, and it depends on who the audience is.

I think that there are a lot of examples of logistics regulations across the state, across the country that you know, sort of I'd say are very similar to what ours look like.

Um, I think for our specific, you know, local market, that's the that's the receiver market here.

We're talking about maybe an item in a board member newsletter that would go out to their municipal counterparts.

Direct outreach from our department to our peers in the local municipalities.

Hey, here's an example that you might consider for your own ordinances, that sort of thing.

And then, of course, you know, if we feel it's appropriate to do additional um advertising of the of the changes, we could and you know, we can follow that that path as well with communications and and with Robin.

Got it.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah.

Um, Eric and I talked about this a little prior to the meeting, and one of the things we talked about was the fact that a lot of the open parcels are not near a highway either, and a lot of these logistical sites are looking for that.

So that's also why we'd be less likely maybe to get so many proposals, but you never know.

And I think it's wonderful that we are doing the groundwork for a lot of municipalities who may not have the staff to do the kind of research that we're able to do.

Yes.

I'll I'll add one sort of real practical comment, uh, sort of similar to what I was saying before about like the the viability of sites in unincorporated like counties pretty low in general.

Another factor that's affecting the rollout of data center or not data centers, but logistics facilities is the presence of a large you know amount of oversupply at this point within the region.

There we are now at a point where the market is currently reaching saturation of facilities because of a lot of the larger scale development that's already taken place, especially along the tollway.

You'll note the all state campus down in um along the tollway, uh just a little bit south of the border, south of Willow, is an example of you know uh essentially a mega center for logistics that is only just now starting to get built out, and they've plan for an entire, you know, basically a mile stretch of the highway to be um populated with these facilities.

So uh there's not a strong demand for these types of facilities right now within Lake County.

The one time we were even approached about it was a few years ago in the former Baxter rather the current Baxter headquarters along along the tollway down near the border.

Um, and and for a number of reasons that that project was suspended and Baxter's back at it.

Um, but we do not envision based on the current state of the market any like high degree of demand for sites within unincorporated Lake County for the time being.

Okay, okay.

Any other questions?

All right, all in favor?

Aye.

All right, motion passes.

Thank you, Eric.

Thank you, Natalie.

Thank you, thank you, Krista.

Okay, any county administrators report?

No administrators report.

Do we have executive session?

No need for executive session.

Any members' remarks?

Okay, oh, member Wasick has something.

Sure.

I know that the state's working on a bill too, so I there's a larger report that will be coming to our committee.

I think in May.

Yes.

Okay.

So the the time is the committee timing is a little up in the air at this point because we continue to um receive more information, both at the state and the national level, information that will have a an impact on how we scope the regulatory exercise for data centers.

Um, as some of you attended the the NACO conference, for example, there was a nice presentation on that that we've been able to sift through as well, and we have um quite a bit of homework yet to do on getting into some of the best practices approaches that have taken been been taking place in other parts of the country.

Um we do see this as a very, very important um sort of policy topic for the county, uh, but it is one that is continuing to evolve in terms of our understanding at the local level at the regional level at the national level of the impacts of data centers and how the technology of data centers is itself evolving and keeping track of those changes and how the facilities are designed and how they operate is going to be part of the analysis that we we undertake in developing regulations if that is ultimately the committee's uh decision that we go forward with that.

But it is one that is continuing to evolve in terms of our understanding at the local level, at the regional level, at the national level of the impacts of data centers and how the technology of data centers is itself evolving, and keeping track of those changes in how the facilities are designed and how they operate is going to be part of the analysis that we we undertake in developing regulations, if that is ultimately the committee's uh decision that we go forward with that.

Um, and so our plan is to bring in the near s the near future in the early summer a um a high-level report that addresses sort of the state of play with respect to regulation of data centers that takes into account best practices that takes in takes into account the most you know the most current science, as well as an understanding of like how we can and cannot enter into regulation related to various aspects of data center impacts.

And so that sort of that broad scope um discussion of data centers is I think going to be instructive to our board as to how to move forward with uh drafting of regulations if ultimately it's the decision of the board to do that.

So we're talking May June, May June.

Yeah.

Great thing.

Okay, any other member comments?

Okay.

Our next meeting will be April 29th, 2026, and we adjourn.

Thank you.