Lake County, IL Animal Ordinances: Wildlife Rescue Permits (2026)

112(DDD) of the Unified Development Ordinance, not a by-right home activity. 070 runs concurrently with that permit review rather than as a separate track. 8 acres, before rehabilitation activity can be sited on it at all, and every structure housing rehabilitation activity must sit back a minimum of 30 feet from all property lines. Where the facility sits next to a residential use, the code requires landscape screening equal to one plant unit per 100 linear feet along that boundary, and the Zoning Board of Appeals can require additional site-specific screening as a condition of approval on top of that baseline.

Setbacks, screening, and noise abatement measures are all worked out case-by-case in the conditional use permit itself, so there is no fixed county-wide noise limit for these facilities beyond what the permit imposes. Any accessory wildlife education programming, tours, school visits, or similar public attendance, is allowed only if it is expressly approved in the conditional use permit application, and the permit is what sets the limits on attendance, hours, days of operation, and how often programming can run. S. Fish and Wildlife Service requires for the species being rehabilitated, and the code's own commentary limits rehabilitation to species the operator's state and federal permits actually cover, excluding species not naturally found in the wild in the United States or considered exotic.