Buying Land in Stark County, Illinois

Zoning: standard township government, a county ordinance built for wind

Stark County uses Illinois's ordinary township form of government -- it is not one of the state's 17 commission-form counties. The Stark County Building and Zoning Department administers the county's zoning ordinance for unincorporated land under 55 ILCS 5 Division 5-12, and that ordinance specifically allows wind energy conversion systems as both a principal use (a standalone commercial wind facility) and an accessory use (a smaller installation serving an existing property) -- a sign the county's zoning framework was built with real wind development in mind, not written before it and retrofitted after the fact.

Illinois state law caps how restrictive that ordinance can be: under the statewide wind-siting standard, a county cannot require more than 2.1 times a turbine's total blade-tip height as the setback from the nearest outside wall of a residence not on leased land, though a county is free to adopt something less restrictive. Confirm Stark County's current, specific setback and other siting requirements directly with the Building and Zoning Department for any parcel near an existing or proposed turbine.

Camp Grove Wind Farm: Stark County's real share of a shared project

The Camp Grove Wind Farm is a 100-turbine, 150 MW facility of GE 1.5 MW turbines straddling the Marshall/Stark county line north of Peoria, operating since November 2007 and owned by subsidiaries of Orion Energy Group LLC, Vision Energy LLC, and other investors. Of the 100 turbines, 60 sit in Marshall County and 40 in Stark County -- meaning Stark's share, while the smaller of the two, is still a substantial, nearly two-decades-old presence on the county's landscape. The project's interconnection point with the regional PJM grid is Commonwealth Edison's Toulon Switchyard, located in Toulon -- Stark County's own county seat -- a detail that ties the project more directly to Stark County's civic geography than a simple "straddles two counties" description suggests.

One naming mix-up worth heading off directly: the unincorporated community of Camp Grove, which gives the wind farm its name, is not actually in Stark County. It was established at an early date on the old line between Stark and Marshall Counties, near the southeast corner of Marshall County's Penn Township, and is documented as no longer sitting within Stark County's boundaries. If you're researching "Camp Grove" as a place name in connection with land near the wind farm, don't assume it points you to Stark County -- confirm the specific parcel's county with the Stark County or Marshall County Assessor's office directly. See our dedicated wind and solar leasing page for Stark County for what an existing wind lease or easement near the project means for a buyer.

One of Illinois's smaller counties -- precisely, not just by reputation

Stark County is genuinely small by Illinois standards -- its 2020 Census population fell in the roughly 5,300-5,400 range. It is not, however, the state's second-least-populous county; this research pass found it ranks closer to 95th of Illinois's 102 counties by population, meaning roughly the eighth-least-populous, behind Hardin, Pope, Calhoun, Scott, and Pulaski Counties among others. Whatever its precise rank, a county this size typically means a leaner local government with fewer dedicated staff per department -- worth keeping in mind when you call the Building and Zoning Department or Health Department with a specific question.

Septic, GIS, and other departments to know

For septic and well permitting, the Stark County Health Department is the local authority, applying the same statewide IDPH Title 77 Part 905 rules that every one of Illinois's roughly 90 local health jurisdictions works under. Its current street address and phone number couldn't be independently pinned down during this research pass, so verify them directly before you start planning a septic layout or well siting on a specific Stark County parcel.

The Stark County Assessment Office handles property valuation, and the Stark County Clerk and Recorder's office holds recorded deeds, easements (including any wind-lease documents tied to Camp Grove), and plats for a specific parcel -- worth checking directly if you're buying land inside or near the wind farm's footprint, since recorded easements don't always surface in a standard title-search summary.