McHenry County officials are considering a 12-month moratorium that would freeze new data center applications across unincorporated parts of the county, a pause that would halt everything from zoning map amendments to building permits while the county figures out how to regulate an industry it currently has no rules for. The county board could extend, repeal, or modify the freeze before the year is up, but for now the proposal represents the county's first real attempt to get ahead of a wave of digital infrastructure development already reshaping neighboring counties.
The proposed moratorium, detailed in reporting by Shaw Local, would cover a wide swath of county processes: submission and review of applications that would permit, authorize or establish a data center, along with zoning map amendments, Unified Development Ordinance text amendments, conditional use permits, use determinations, site plan reviews, variances and building permits. County staff and the Planning, Environment and Development Committee were asked to examine how to address data centers in county ordinances, which currently include no data center provisions at all. Board member Joe Gottemoller said data centers will be coming regardless, and that addressing them in county ordinances would make sense.
Groundwater Dependence Drives the Debate
Much of the local anxiety traces back to how the county gets its drinking water. McHenry County relies exclusively on groundwater aquifers for municipal and domestic supply, tracking water tables through 37 real-time monitoring wells operated in partnership with the U.S. Geological Survey since 2009, according to the McHenry County Blog. Its municipal and domestic water supply comes from groundwater aquifers. Data center opponents have also raised concerns about a perceived lack of transparency and the industry's broader energy usage, worries that echo a national pattern: an Associated Press poll found a majority of American adults are extremely or very concerned about data centers' impacts on electricity prices, water supply and power outages.
Those local fears sit inside a much larger statewide picture. An October 2026 study by the Illinois Economic Policy Institute, a labor-backed research organization, projected that $57 billion in planned data center investments through 2035 could create roughly 121,000 jobs statewide, including about 2,800 direct permanent positions, with the rest mostly temporary construction work and indirect job creation spread through the economy. Frank Manzo of the institute said a comprehensive study was needed to guide policymakers on addressing residents' concerns, per Capitol News Illinois. The same research, detailed by Capitol News Illinois, found Illinois ranks ninth nationally with 19 data centers per million residents, with the industry already contributing $10 billion annually to the state's economy and accounting for 7 percent of statewide electricity demand.
A Stalled Legislature and a Paused Tax Program
Illinois lawmakers failed to pass data center regulations during the spring 2026 session, including the Protecting Our Water, Energy, and Ratepayers Act, which would have required data centers to bring new clean energy capacity online and barred utilities from passing grid expansion costs to general ratepayers, according to Prairie Rivers Network. Separately, Gov. JB Pritzker paused the state's Data Center Investment Program, putting future tax-break agreements on hold starting July 1. The program offered tax breaks to data centers, per the Illinois Times.
Local governments have also debated how to address data centers. McHenry County's proposal would apply to unincorporated land, leaving incorporated areas outside its reach.
What Happens Next in Woodstock
The McHenry County Planning, Environment and Development Committee is set to take up the moratorium proposal Tuesday at 8:30 a.m. at the county administration building in Woodstock. If the committee advances it, the full county board is expected to vote at its November meeting, though the timing is uncertain enough that the proposal may not reach the board that soon.
The proposal's timeline remains uncertain as the county board considers the measure.
McHenry County isn't the first in the region to wrestle with how to regulate an industry moving faster than local zoning codes. In Kane County, the Village of Sugar Grove opted against a full moratorium in April, instead reclassifying data centers as a special use in limited manufacturing districts so trustees could weigh noise and energy standards project by project — a move Hoodline covered in April following neighboring Aurora's adoption of stricter performance standards.
