Buying Land in Champaign County, Illinois

Zoning: one countywide ordinance, several self-zoned cities

The Champaign County Department of Planning and Zoning is the office to call for any parcel in unincorporated Champaign County. It reviews and issues zoning use permits, inspects construction and land use for zoning-ordinance compliance, investigates alleged violations, administers the county's Special Flood Hazards Development Regulations and Storm Water Management and Erosion Control Ordinance, and comments on new subdivisions. That's a fairly typical Illinois county-zoning setup under 55 ILCS 5 Division 5-12 -- but Champaign County's twin cities make the exception unusually large in practice: Champaign and Urbana are both sizable cities running their own independent zoning entirely outside county jurisdiction, and other incorporated towns in the county (Rantoul, Mahomet, Tolono, St. Joseph, Savoy, and others) may do the same. Confirm whether your target parcel sits in unincorporated county land or inside one of these municipalities before contacting the wrong office.

Champaign County retains township government -- its Supervisor of Assessments lists 29 townships (Ayers, Brown, Champaign, Colfax, Compromise, Condit, Crittenden, Cunningham, East Bend, Harwood, Hensley, Kerr, Ludlow, Mahomet, Newcomb, Ogden, Pesotum, Philo, Raymond, Rantoul, Sadorus, Scott, Sidney, Somer, South Homer, St. Joseph, Stanton, Tolono, and Urbana), so it is not one of the 17 Illinois counties that use a no-township commission form of government. Separately, county voters approved a County Executive (non-home-rule) form of county board government in a November 2016 referendum -- a change to how the county board itself operates, not to zoning jurisdiction. Because the county has adopted its own zoning ordinance, Illinois's Article 110 township zoning does not independently apply in any Champaign County township regardless of that 2016 governance change.

Wind and solar: an active, contested development corridor

Champaign County already hosts a real utility-scale wind footprint. California Ridge Wind Farm, owned by Invenergy, is a 134-turbine project (1.6 MW turbines, 217 MW total capacity) spanning eastern Champaign County and western Vermilion County, operating since December 2012 -- roughly 30 of its turbines sit in northeastern Champaign County. Separately, Apex Clean Energy has been in early discussions with Champaign County landowners about a new wind project (reported under the name Open Prairie Wind), targeting the southern part of the county for its wind resource and grid access, though as of the most recent reporting found, no permit application had been filed and construction was described as several years out.

Solar has been the more contentious front. The county board approved a roughly 1,191-acre, 150 MW BayWa r.e. solar farm east of Sidney in January 2019 -- at the time, the largest proposed solar farm in the state. More recently, a Mahomet-area solar project (proposed by an entity tied to Summit Ridge Energy, on a smaller ~36-acre site generating close to 5 MW) drew sustained local opposition, was tabled once by the county board, and ultimately passed by an 11-10 vote after a contentious debate. See our dedicated page on wind and solar leasing in Champaign County for what this pattern of contested approvals means if you're evaluating a lease offer or buying land near a proposed or existing project.

The statewide law shaping local wind and solar rules

Illinois counties don't have unlimited discretion to write their own wind and solar rules. Public Act 102-1123, signed January 27, 2023, amended 55 ILCS 5/5-12020 of the Counties Code to set statewide siting standards -- covering setbacks, blade-tip heights, decommissioning, and agricultural-land treatment -- that a county's own ordinance cannot exceed in restrictiveness, and it bars counties from imposing outright moratoriums on wind or solar development. Champaign County's Environment & Land Use Committee worked through a formal ordinance-amendment process in 2023 to bring its own PV-solar-farm rules into line with the new state ceiling. That statewide framework is the backdrop against which every solar and wind special-use-permit fight in the county has played out since.

Septic, GIS, and other departments to know

The Champaign-Urbana Public Health District (201 W. Kenyon Rd., Champaign) provides septic (private sewage disposal) permitting and site-evaluation services across Champaign County under the statewide IDPH Title 77 Part 905 code -- site-evaluation approvals for undeveloped land are generally good for three years, and the district recommends confirming septic approval status before buying undeveloped property. The Champaign County Assessment Office ((217) 384-3760) and Recorder's Office ((217) 384-3774) are both based at the Brookens Administrative Center, 1776 E. Washington St., Urbana. Parcel-level GIS data is available through the Champaign County GIS Consortium (CCGISC), a joint Champaign-Piatt County effort formed in 2002. University of Illinois Extension serves Champaign County jointly with Ford, Iroquois, and Vermilion Counties, with a local office at 801 N. Country Fair Dr., Suite D, Champaign.