Lake County, IL Business Licensing & Operations: Auto Repair on Residential Property (2026)

113(E) of the Unified Development Ordinance and are written as performance standards: an activity that meets every standard is allowed as a home occupation unless the code specifically bans it, and vehicle and large-equipment repair is one of the uses specifically banned outright. Subsection (E)(5)(a), titled 'Vehicle and large equipment storage/repair,' prohibits any type of repair, assembly, or storage of vehicles or equipment powered by internal combustion engines, the code lists autos, motorcycles, scooters, snowmobiles, outboard marine engines, lawn mowers, and chain saws as examples, plus repair of large appliances such as washing machines, dryers, and refrigerators, or any other work related to automobiles and their parts.

Unlike the code's other listed home-occupation exclusions, there is no size, frequency, or indoor-only exception written into this subsection; the ban applies regardless of whether the work happens in a garage, a detached shed, or the house itself. The rest of subsection (E) still frames what a home occupation generally has to do: it must remain subordinate to the residential use, occupy less than 50% of the dwelling's floor area, and get a zoning certificate before starting. The code draws a narrower carve-out at (E)(5)(f) for mobile, off-site vehicle servicing businesses, companies that drive to a client's location to do the repair work, which may keep a home office and park one commercial vehicle under the home occupation's vehicle-parking rules, but may not use the home lot itself for the repair, detailing, or storage of the vehicles being serviced.