Waukegan, IL Environmental Rules: Flood Zones (2026)

Article IV of Chapter 6, Flood Damage Prevention and Control, applies across the floodplains, floodways, and floodway fringes mapped under Sec. 6-91's definitions and identified on the United States Geological Survey Hydrologic Investigations Atlas maps referenced in Sec. 6-93. Sec. 6-92(a) states the article supplements, rather than replaces, the city's subdivision ordinance, zoning ordinance, and adopted building codes. Subsection (b) spells out what it additionally regulates: the subdivision, layout, and improvement of land including drainage and underground utilities; the excavation, filling, and grading of floodplain lots and the storing of materials on them, plus streams, runoff channels, detention ponds, and basins; and the location, construction, and elevation of buildings and other structures in flood-prone areas, along with drainage for parking lots and paved areas.

Subsection (c) requires an applicant to satisfy the submission and approval steps of those other ordinances, subdivision plats, improvement plans, building and zoning permits, inspections, and appeals, in addition to whatever this article and state regulations require, before starting any regulated work. Sec. 6-116 backs that up directly: no zoning, building, or subdivision permit can be granted anywhere in the city unless the flood-control article's requirements have been met, giving the planning and building departments a hard stop on issuing permits in a mapped flood area until compliance is shown.