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A Lake County zoning board approved a 49-acre solar farm with 13,000 panels in unincorporated Mundelein on land bordering Hawthorn Woods and Long Grove after officials from both villages and residents spoke against it.
The Lake County Zoning Board of Appeals approved a conditional use permit for the commercial solar energy system on October 7 following a public hearing at Knights Banquets in Lake Zurich.
The meeting agenda called for the board to go into closed session to deliberate after hearing the evidence.
The vote count was not immediately available because the minutes of the meeting have not been finalized.
Mundelein Real Estate Investments LLC owns the property, about 49 acres made up of four parcels in the 20500 and 20600 blocks of West Indian Creek Road in unincorporated Mundelein, according to county records.
Lake County Solar 3 LLC, which has held an option to buy the property since June 2024, is the co-applicant and New Leaf Energy, a Lowell, Massachusetts, company, is representing both in the application filed August 11.
The application describes a community solar facility of around five megawatts with 13,075 First Solar panels mounted on trackers that tilt to follow the sun across 35 fenced acres of the property.
The application does not include battery storage.
The property is farmland zoned for estate homes, with Long Grove to the north across the railroad tracks and Hawthorn Woods to the south across Indian Creek Road, according to a county staff report.
Hawthorn Woods’ long-range plan calls for single-family homes on the land and the county’s plan calls for homes on 1- to 3-acre lots, the report said.
Lake County Assistant Planning and Zoning Manager Frank Olson recommended approval in the report, finding the project met county requirements for fencing, height, setbacks and a plan to remove the equipment when it is no longer used.
The system would be surrounded by an eight-foot fence and the panels would not exceed 20 feet in height, Olson said.
“Further, per the statute, conditional use permit applications shall be approved if found to be in compliance with the statutory standards,” Olson said in the report.
Olson said state law bars counties from adopting zoning rules that keep commercial solar facilities out of any district that allows agriculture and the county’s code allows agriculture in every zoning district, which means a solar facility is allowed on the estate-zoned land.
The zoning board’s decision on commercial solar permits is final and does not go to the Lake County Board and its review of those permits “does not involve discretionary judgment,” according to the county’s website.
The Illinois Department of Natural Resources concluded that adverse effects on protected resources near the site are unlikely and recommended pollinator-friendly ground cover, a six-inch gap under the fence for wildlife and clearing trees only between November 1 and March 31, Olson said.
The property has wetlands in parts of its north and southwest sides but no floodplain, the report said.
The project still needs a county site development permit and building permits. Any effects on wetlands would be reviewed by the Lake County Stormwater Management Commission, the report said.
New Leaf Energy estimated it would cost $488,254 to remove the system, according to a cost estimate in the application.
The owner must guarantee 10% of that cost by the first anniversary of the system’s operation, 50% by the sixth and the full amount by the 11th under an agreement with the Illinois Department of Agriculture.
Lake County Board member Jessica Vealitzek, whose district includes the property, said earlier this month that state law limits what the county can do with projects like this one.
“The statute that governs commercial solar in unincorporated areas essentially prevents counties from saying no if the project checks all the boxes in the statute,” Vealitzek said.
“The ZBA does have discretion with landscaping and buffering; this is an area residents can influence,” Vealitzek said.
“There is no credible evidence that passive solar fields create negative health consequences for humans or wildlife; claims otherwise are unfounded,” Vealitzek said.
A resident who attended the hearing said that Hawthorn Woods officials spoke against the project for about an hour and Long Grove officials for about a half-hour and that about 25 residents objected.
Concerns raised at the hearing included the project’s closeness to homes, possible contamination of private wells, stormwater runoff and flooding along Indian Creek, noise from the inverters, the landscaping plan and who would pay to remove the equipment, the resident said.
Another attendee said that no one other than the solar company spoke in favor of the project.
Long Grove Village President Bill Jacob said at a recent village board meeting that the vote was unanimous.
Jacob, who lives in a subdivision on the other side of the railroad tracks from the property, said the land had always been planned for homes in Hawthorn Woods’ comprehensive plan under a boundary agreement between the two villages.
Jacob said the village’s attorney would bring back options the village might pursue to lessen the project’s impact and that he did not know whether the village could stop it.
Long Grove opposed a developer’s plan, first brought to the village at the end of 2024, to install a solar system on up to 30 acres of a 90-acre parcel on Gilmer Road across from the Kildeer Countryside school campus, Jacob previously said.
Jacob said the developer filed a lawsuit to disconnect that property from Long Grove “with the assumption that the county would approve the project” and later voluntarily dismissed the lawsuit.
Jacob called the episode “a stark warning of how seemingly well-intended state and county green energy mandates can easily collide with our village’s intentional, generational zoning plans designed to protect our pastoral community.”
An application to build a solar farm on around 38 acres in the 25400 block of North Fairfield Road near Hawthorn Woods also drew opposition from the village and residents in 2024.
Then-state Sen. Dan McConchie said in April 2024 that the application had been withdrawn.
The Hawthorn Woods Village Board approved an agreement on July 27 with Lake County Solar 3 LLC setting requirements for the company’s use of village roads, according to meeting minutes.
Residents in community Facebook groups and on Nextdoor have objected since the hearing to the project’s closeness to homes and its possible effects on property values, wells, stormwater and wildlife, as well as the loss of farmland.
Others said the solar farm would be a quiet neighbor and would keep a data center or other development off the land.
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