McHenry County 2030 Plan 

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Talking Points, March 2010:

Please attend one of these meetings and make your voice heard.  If you are unable to attend a meeting, please put these comments into your own words and email them or send them to the addresses shown below.   

Comments: 

1.  We want to thank P & D members for reducing the population projection in the Plan from 540,000 people in 2030 down to a more reasonable 495,000 people.  While this revised total still exceeds the official regional forecast, it is a very positive change as it allows us to plan for retention of more agricultural land and open space as well as to protect more groundwater recharge areas and hydric soils in our county.

2.  The Future Land Use Map that is now part of the plan is not acceptable because it is inconsistent with the revised population and it fragments agricultural land use and consumes too much prime agricultural land.  In recognition of this inconsistency, the P & D Committee requested that staff develop a revised Future Land Use Map Analysis consistent with the revised population and following the resource and agricultural protection and compact/contiguous development policies that were adopted by the 2030 Plan Commission.  These suggested changes were documented in a February 10, 2010, Memorandum from staff to the Committee.  Accordingly, we strongly recommend that the P & D Committee amend the map by removing the areas listed below from Residential/Estate classifications and designating them as Agricultural.  These changes will preserve areas of contiguous agricultural use and protect some of our best ag soils and groundwater recharge areas while supporting the idea of compact contiguous development around our municipalities. These changes are consistent with the analysis conducted by the Planning and Development Department that can be accessed at http://www.co.mchenry.il.us/departments/countyboard/MtgDocs/201002/0218pd/0218pd5_4.pdf. 

To make the map consistent with the population projection, these areas should be designated as Agricultural, not Residential or Estate.

    1.  Western Coral Township

    2.  Southeast of Hebron

    3.  West of Hebron

    4.  Tryon Grove - Barnard Mill Triangle

    5.  Southeast of Hebron

    6.  Southwest of Hebron 

    7.  Rte. 23 Marengo Township

    8.  West of Plum Tree Area

    9.  South of Plum Tree Area

    10.  Northwest of Huntley

    11.  Southwest of Woodstock (Seneca Twp)

    12.  East of Marengo (East portion)

    13.  East of Marengo (West portion)

3.  We also ask that the map be amended to minimize the areas designated for Commercial/Industrial development that are located in sensitive aquifer recharge areas (SARA).  Specifically the areas north of Woodstock and west of Marengo should be decreased in size by eliminating areas contained on the SARA map.

4.  To be consistent and complete, we ask P & D to place the one MCNAI (McHenry County Natural Areas Inventory) site that was removed from the map by the Planning Commission, back on the map. 

5.  We strongly support the resource protection policy statements of the Open Space, Water Resources, and Agriculture Chapters and further ask that strong action words such as "require" be retained in the policy statements to protect our open space, water resources, and ag lands rather than being replaced with words such as "encourage". 

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The Planning and Development Committee of the County Board met on November 23, 2009 to go over the Water Resources Chapter of the 2030 Comprehensive Plan Draft. Several Defenders members attended to show their support for protecting our finite and vulnerable water resources. Below are some primary talking points used:  - Keep the policies and protections in the plan that help prevent flooded basements, constantly running sump-pumps, destruction of landscaping, water run off, and the tanking property values that go with these things. - Redirect development out of water recharge areas. - Direct development to areas where municipal water facilities already exist. - Keep the policies and protections that protect our high quality water bodies - these provide habitat and water for wildlife. - Include policies ensuring that evaluating a proposed development's water use and water capacity are a primary part of the planning process. - New development needs to be sustainable and not compromise the water availability of current uses. McHenry County's only source of potable water are our local aquifers. The county does not and will not have access to Lake Michigan water, and we have no rivers or other water bodies locally that are big enough to draw from. The aquifers are it, and they are at risk. Please attend tonight's meeting and tell the County Board it's time to make sure McHenry County will have water for its people and wildlife now, and for future generations.

This meeting was particularly important because the remaining policies protecting water are at risk of being removed entirely or weakened to the point of being completely ineffective.

The Defenders sent the following letter on November 11, 2009:

To Members of the Planning and Development Committee of the County Board: 

Once again, the Defenders would like to applaud the Regional Planning Commission and staff for their hard work and dedication in creating the draft 2030 Comprehensive Plan. We acknowledge that parts of the plan do include important environmental and water protections that deserve our continued support. However, as it stands, this plan continues current patterns of growth and development that will create difficult problems as we run up against physical limitations of water, food, land and economic resources.  

We’re all aware of the problems our county will face, but in short: 

In 2005 McHenry County consumed 51 million gallons of water per day (MGD). The current estimated maximum sustainable extraction for the entire county is 120 MGD.  If the municipalities reach full build out the county will see water usage overdraw all aquifer capacity by 40 MGD, not accounting for any impacts of possible drought. This also does not take into consideration water availability issues in different areas of the county. Left unchecked, aquifer depletion threatens the very existence of McHenry County as a viable community.  

In a world of increasing transportation and energy costs and instability of food systems, this plan drastically increases our county’s dependence on food imports by consuming 28,000 acres of agricultural land for development. According to the US Government, it takes (at least) 1.2 acres of land per capita to sustain the current American diet. At 226,206 acres remaining today in agricultural zoning, we don’t have the land to support our current local population. By 2050, food prices are expected to rise by 3 to 5 times current cost, while McHenry County prematurely trades away its valuable food-producing capacity.  

The challenges we face with water and arable land are exacerbated by the potential future impacts of climate change on McHenry County. Current estimates for our area include more than 70 days with temperatures above 90 degrees and 30 days with temperatures exceeding 100 degrees by 2050. Predicted changes in weather patterns show precipitation in the form of heavy rainfall causing floods and soil erosion instead of providing relief from dry spells. When rain comes in periodic downpours, it manifests as storm water run off and flooding which also prevents efficient and effective recharge of our aquifers. This instability in weather and temperature patterns needs to be taken into full consideration in order to minimize environmental, agricultural, and economic risks to our communities.  

Finally, this plan is a blueprint for sprawl as evidenced by the large sections of residential, estate, and office/research/industrial placed in the unincorporated areas of the county. For discussion, the Vermont Forum on Sprawl concisely defines sprawl as "dispersed development outside of compact urban and village centers along highways and in rural countryside." Or we could use the “manifestations of sprawl” from our own plan’s definition: “leapfrog development, strip commercial development, or large expanses of predominantly low-density, single-use development.”  

The National Wildlife Federation lists sprawl as one of the major threats to wetlands and it isn’t hard to see why. Sprawl fragments important habitat, burdens ecosystems, brings people into conflict with wildlife and adversely effects water quality by increasing polluted run off and flooding while decreasing open space for infiltration. So, while the plan includes important environmental and water protections, it does not adequately protect from the environmental impacts of sprawl.  

In addition to preserving the existing vital environmental protections without compromise, we ask that you examine the proposed land map. The land uses, including the large areas of estate residential, should be reexamined carefully to ensure that they are truly sustainable and consistent with the plan’s broader goals including quality of life, rural character and a healthy environment.  

With all this in mind, the Defenders are not advocating for a policy of closing the door on all new development, only that the county’s plan reflect the overwhelming public desire to protect water, open spaces and agricultural land and set prudent and sustainable goals for development based on the physical resource limitations of the county. If we acknowledge and face these challenges directly, our children will not have to shoulder the burdens of our inaction. 

Thank you for considering this information. We appreciate the opportunity to be a part of this continuing public process.  

Respectfully, 

Bill Donato

Board President

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Defenders' Board member, Kim Willis, gave the following comments to the County Board in early November, 2009, on our behalf:

"Good Morning. My name is Kim Willis and this morning I am speaking to you on behalf of the Environmental Defenders of McHenry County, located at 124 Cass Street in Woodstock

"You’ve just heard a brief overview of the 2030 Comprehensive Plan document, and I'd like to thank  Mr. Eldridge, Mr. Dreher, and Mr. Sandquist for providing you with that overview.

"The Defenders have followed the Regional Planning Commission and staff through the hundreds of hours they have dedicated to creating this document for you. We applaud their efforts and commitment to this important process.

"The plan, in its current form, represents an honest attempt at balance. However, it starts from an assumption of preserving the status quo of recent growth, then tries to balance everything else we value within that framework. This will defer difficult problems to our children, as the status quo runs up against our county’s physical limitations of water, food dependence, infrastructure and the inevitable end to easy development. Instead, we have the opportunity to start with a focus on these actual physical realities and work to balance the interests of development within this more prudent framework.   

"As such, the Defenders will continue to advocate for greater consideration of water resources, agriculture and open space in this document. Our most significant request at this stage is that the existing basic provisions made for environmental concerns be preserved, spared from deletion or dilution.

"Our members, along with many other members of the public who commented on the draft plan, overwhelming called for the plan to reflect their desires to protect the water resources, open spaces and agricultural land in McHenry County.

"We ask the members of the Planning and Development Committee, as well as the Board as a whole to maintain the current protections provided to our community’s water, food, and natural areas, act upon the general public’s request for protection to land and water, and ensure the final plan provides a more equitable vision for the future of McHenry County.

"Thank You."

The Northwest Herald published an article on November 5th: Read it here.

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Members of the Defender's Land Use and Water Resources committees reviewed the draft 2030 Land Use Map and accompanying draft chapter released by the County's Regional Planning Commission. The following are the collected comments and questions from their review. We encourage all Defender's members to review the map and accompanying chapter on the County's 2030 Plan website.

The regional planning commission has posted the comments they received on the 2030 plan. Click here.   

If Defenders members have any new questions or comments they would like to share with the committees or want become more involved with the 2030 plan, please email the Defenders at mcdef@owc.net. To see the maps and chapter, go to http://www.mchenrycounty2030plan.com

1. The group appreciated the commission's utilization of a generally compact, contiguous growth scenario as a basis for the County Land Use Map.

2. The group was pleased to see a reduction in land devoted to Estate Residential Use when compared to the 2010 plan map. We encourage the commission to maintain or reduce the Estate Residential areas where possible.

3. The designation of Environmentally Sensitive Areas in both incorporated and unincorporated areas on the map allows for greater awareness of these areas for planning purposes. The group encourages the commission to keep these areas shown on the map.

4. While the group was pleased to see the Environmentally Sensitive areas designated, we question why some of the McHenry County Natural Area Inventory (MCNAI) sites were not shown as Environmentally Sensitive on the map(see especially SE corner of Hebron and west side of Richmond)We encourage commission to clearly designate all of these areas.

5. Also in regards to sensitive areas; when placing the Transportation Oriented Development (TOD) locations in Marengo and Huntley did the commission take into consideration and avoid impacts to the globally rare HUM Prairie?

6. The removal of the Ag/Rural Residential Land Use distinction is appreciated as that land use was not in sync with this plan's focus on compact, contiguous growth.

7. There were questions as to whether the Retail Land Use scattered throughout the county was logical. Does this retail make sense in these areas? What was the reasoning supporting those locations? Do these locations enable non-vehicle travel or necessitate the use of a personal vehicle? We encourage the commission to review these areas for appropriateness under a compact, contiguous growth scenario.

8. Regarding commercial growth, what is rationale for increasing land for Office/Industrial as compared to 2010 plan? Was the Sensitive Aquifer Recharge Map used to avoid placing Industrial Land Use in sensitive areas? The SARA map should be utilized for all such development, and we encourage the commission to re-examine the Industrial designations to ensure the minimization of Industrial Land use in these areas.

9. We recommend that any existing non-contiguous Estate parcels/areas be designated with a different color and as an existing use not to be encouraged. This eliminates confusion and prevents the parcels being misinterpreted as planned for residential by the commission while still acknowledging the current zoning. The need for this distinction may be best illustrated by the three isolated estate areas near Harvard and Marengo on page 10 where residential growth should not be encouraged. We encourage the commission to incorporate this distinction into the map and chapter.

10. The group questioned whether all the Residential Land Use, particularly shown north and southeast of Marengo, was truly necessary to accommodate the population growth. We ask that the commission re-examine whether more of the growth can be directed as infill in already incorporated areas.

11. A primary concern of the group was the 540,000 population projection for 2030. How was the projected population increase determined? What methods were used?  The county is facing serious water deficits and loss of agricultural land. Inflated population projections may increase unnecessary development in the county, increasing risks of water shortages and destruction of agricultural land. The population projection needs to be based on sound information using widely accepted sources and methodology. We request the commission re-examine their projections, and clearly state the methodology used in the Land Use Chapter. 

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 For more information visit the 2030 plan website www.mchenrycounty2030plan.com or call the McHenry County Department of Planning and Development at (815) 334-4560 ext. 1. 

The draft map can be obtained by clicking HERE.

Read the McHenry County Green Alliance comments here. (many Alliance members are also Defenders.)