Waukegan, IL Parking Rules: Commercial & Oversized Vehicles (2026)

6 of the Unified Development Ordinance names the vehicle types Waukegan treats as commercial for residential parking purposes: limousines, buses, tow trucks, semi-truck trailers, box trucks, construction vehicles, landscaping vehicles and trailers, agricultural vehicles, and other similar commercial vehicles. None of those vehicles may be parked in a residential zoning district unless one of three conditions is met: the vehicle sits inside an enclosed garage, the vehicle is not visible from the public right-of-way, or the vehicle is actively in use for deliveries, repairs, construction, maintenance, loading, or unloading.

The second half of the same section closes the obvious workaround, stating flatly that parking of commercial vehicles on public streets or in private driveways visible from the public right-of-way is prohibited, so simply pulling a box truck into an open driveway does not satisfy the standard if it can be seen from the street. This provision sits within the UDO's off-street parking chapter, alongside the accessible-parking, tandem-parking, and shared-parking-facility rules that govern every other class of vehicle in Waukegan, and it applies citywide to every residential zoning district rather than to a single neighborhood.

Because the rule turns on visibility rather than a fixed distance or size threshold, screening a commercial vehicle behind a fence, garage, or building can bring an otherwise-prohibited vehicle into compliance, while a compliant garage door left open long enough for the vehicle to be seen from the street can put the same vehicle back into violation.