Buying Land in McHenry County, North Dakota

A more developed zoning system than most rural ND counties -- but mid-update as of 2025-2026

McHenry County stands out among this site's North Dakota counties for having a genuinely developed planning infrastructure: an adopted Comprehensive Plan covering 2015 through 2035, a standalone County Planning & Zoning Commission (rather than zoning folded into the Auditor's Office, as in several smaller ND counties), and a zoning ordinance with distinct agricultural, residential, rural residential, recreational, commercial, and industrial districts. North Dakota Century Code requires any county that exercises zoning authority to have an adopted Comprehensive Plan, and McHenry County meets that requirement directly.

What a buyer needs to know right now, though, is that this ordinance was actively being rewritten as of late 2025 and into 2026: the county solicited public input specifically to modernize the regulations, ensure they reflect current community goals and state/federal requirements, and address development types the existing ordinance didn't anticipate. Proposed amendments go through the Planning & Zoning Commission and then the County Commission before adoption. Because the update was in progress at the time of this writing, don't assume any specific district requirement, setback, or permitted-use list described in an older document is still current -- confirm directly with the Planning & Zoning Commission (Kristine Brodehl serves as Zoning Administrator) what version of the ordinance is currently in force for a specific parcel.

The Souris River, J. Clark Salyer NWR, and the 2011 flood

McHenry County sits along the Souris (also called the Mouse) River, which loops down from Saskatchewan through north-central North Dakota. A large stretch of that river corridor -- roughly 58,700 acres along about 75 miles of river -- is protected as J. Clark Salyer National Wildlife Refuge, shared between McHenry and Bottineau counties, established in 1935 (originally as the Lower Souris National Wildlife Refuge) on what was once the bed of Glacial Lake Souris. A parcel near the refuge boundary should be checked against current USFWS mapping before assuming unrestricted private use.

The Souris River also carries a serious, well-documented flood history that touches McHenry County directly. In the historic 2011 flood, the river reached its highest level on record at Minot -- 1,561.72 feet above sea level, well above the previous record of 1,558 feet set in 1881 -- after record-setting spring rains overwhelmed the regulating capacity of upstream reservoirs (three in Saskatchewan and Lake Darling in North Dakota). The National Weather Service specifically forecast major flooding for Towner, the McHenry County seat, along with Sherwood, Minot, Bantry, and Westhope, and reporting from the time describes the river as especially swollen near Towner and Bantry as the crest moved downstream. This wasn't a McHenry-specific disaster on the scale of Minot's, but it establishes that this river corridor has a genuine, recent, well-documented flood record. Confirm current FEMA flood-zone status directly for any parcel near the Souris River in this county.

Septic and environmental health: routed through the First District Health Unit in Minot

McHenry County does not run its own septic-permitting department. It's one of seven counties -- alongside Bottineau, Burke, McLean, Renville, Sheridan, and Ward -- served by the First District Health Unit, headquartered in Minot, with a dedicated McHenry County office in Towner. Septic (onsite wastewater) permits, inspections, and environmental health questions for a McHenry County parcel go through that health unit, layered on top of the state-level licensing framework the state hub already covers.