Will County Kicks Off Comprehensive Land Resource Management Plan Update with Focus on Proactive Zoning and Environmental Justice

Will County Board Land Use & Development Committee Meeting | March 26, 2026

Article Summary: The Will County Land Use and Development Committee held a special workshop to kick off the county’s first major Land Resource Management Plan (LRMP) update since 2001. County Board members urged consultants to draft a plan that shifts the county from reactive to proactive zoning, with heavy emphasis on environmental justice, protecting water resources from data centers, and aligning county development with municipal comprehensive plans.

LRMP Kickoff Key Points:

• The county hired lead consultant Tesca Associates, along with sub-consultants AECOM and Baxter & Woodman, to guide the LRMP update process.

• The update will primarily modernize the “Policy Gateway” and “Forms and Concepts” handbook, establishing 21st-century zoning logic for the county.

• Board members directed the consultants to prioritize environmental justice to prevent the clustering of heavy industrial and polluting projects in minority and disenfranchised communities.

• The county has launched a public engagement website, guidewill.co, featuring interactive comment maps and visioning surveys for residents.

The Will County Land Use and Development Committee on Thursday, March 26, 2026, convened a special workshop acting as the steering committee for the long-awaited update to the county’s Land Resource Management Plan (LRMP).

The workshop marked the formal launch of the planning process, serving as a brainstorming session between County Board members and the hired consulting team, led by Tesca Associates in partnership with AECOM and Baxter & Woodman. The county’s last major LRMP overhaul occurred in 2001, with minor updates in 2011 and specific area plans for Fairmont in 2012 and Sugar Run Creek in 2017.

Michael Blue, Vice President of Planning for Tesca Associates, asked board members to step back from their day-to-day constituent issues and envision the county’s macro-level future.

“My favorite thing about any plan is that it answers the question, ‘What does the county want to see here?'” Blue told the committee. “It gives your city council, quite honestly, the confidence to know that the direction that people were getting from staff was broadly supported by the county and the plan.”

During a round-robin feedback session, a unifying theme emerged among board members: Will County must stop playing catch-up to emerging industries.

“One of the big takeaways for me is just we’re always seemingly reacting to things and not thinking about it proactively,” said Board Member Frankie Pretzel (R-New Lenox). “Solar is the big one, but we hear about these modular nuclear facilities probably in the near future, and data centers. But even if you go a little bit deeper, smaller issues… cemeteries. I didn’t know much about religious cemeteries until somebody bought a bunch of property in Homer Glen and turned it into a cemetery, and we found out there’s really nothing we can do about that.”

Board Member Destinee Ortiz (D-Romeoville) stressed that the new LRMP must incorporate strict environmental justice guidelines. She pointed to the recent approval of a massive data center in Joliet—a city already facing a looming water crisis and hosting the Lincoln Stone Quarry and multiple refineries.

“I feel like it’s very important that we highlight those in our communities so that people know where these [environmental justice] areas are,” Ortiz said. “Often times they’re in neighborhoods and communities that we put our worst projects in… Let’s not put a hundred more in this one area.”

Board Member Mitchell echoed Ortiz’s concerns, requesting tighter zoning regulations to ensure residents near data centers are not deprived of clean water or forced to pay extraordinary utility costs. Mitchell also asked consultants to “create zones that make sense,” referencing the county’s recent struggle to cleanly separate standard industrial zoning from heavy warehouse zoning.

Another frequent grievance aired by the board was the historic lack of coordination between the county’s zoning decisions and the comprehensive plans of neighboring municipalities. County Board Speaker Joe VanDuyne (D-Wilmington) noted that the state’s recent takeover of commercial solar farm regulations has further eroded local control, making regional alignment vital.

“We do need to be friendlier to our municipalities so when they have a comprehensive plan, we can actually support them,” VanDuyne said, referencing a recent conflict where a solar company attempted to build next to a planned residential area in Shorewood where the village had already invested millions in sewer and water infrastructure. “Now the State of Illinois has taken that option away from us to change direction and deny these solar farms.”

Consultant Aaron Sigliano introduced the project’s new public engagement website, guidewill.co. The site includes a “visioning survey” and an interactive comment map where residents can drop pins to highlight specific areas they love, outline transportation needs, or flag local concerns. Sigliano noted that the consulting team is also actively inviting all township supervisors and road commissioners for stakeholder interviews.