Consequences Of Unrestrained Growth

You can acknowledge the improvements to the Downtown District and still recognize when it is on the verge of overdevelopment.

McHenry’s Downtown District is bordered by IL-31 to the west, the Fox River to the east, and bisected to the north/south by IL-120. This is a precarious configuration because the City does not control the border of Downtown, with IL-31 and IL-120 being state-controlled highways and the Fox River being immovable. This means that McHenry has no option but to be extremely thoughtful for all Downtown development so as to not create congestion that the City does not have the jurisdiction to properly address through road expansion. It is because of this layout that the City needs to be particularly cautious about not overdeveloping the Downtown District.

The Mayor stated in a December 7th, 2024 Northwest Herald article that some residents “want that small community, and to keep McHenry small. We have to grow and innovate as a community. If we do not we will die.” McHenry will not die if we do not continue on this aggressive growth trajectory. The City does, however, run the risk of being suffocated.

According to data released from the US Census Bureau, the Village of Wonder Lake was the fastest-growing municipality in Illinois from April 2020 to July 2023, with a 23.27% growth in population, increasing from 3,966 to 4,889 residents. Future population growth will be driven primarily by the Stonewater housing development, a new residential neighborhood of 3,700 homes located nearly at the border of Wonder Lake and McHenry. As of December 2024, 500 of the 3,700 homes have been built and are occupied, with the remaining 3,200 to be constructed in various stages in the upcoming years. Once completed, Wonder Lake anticipates an additional 10,000 residents. This would be a 204.54% increase in population from July 2023.

The primary access road to the Stonewater housing development is IL-120. From Stonewater, the majority of development and commerce is east along IL-120 so it is safe to state that traffic along IL-120 in McHenry will significantly increase as the Wonder Lake population grows.

Per a 2023 analysis by the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT), the average daily traffic on the 0.3 miles stretch of IL-120 that connects IL-31/Front Street to IL-31/Richmond Road is 31,500 automobiles. For reference, the 2024 population of McHenry is 28,117. The distance from the intersection of IL-120/Richmond Street and the intersection of IL-120/Green Street is 350 feet. See the image at the bottom of this page for the 2023 IDOT analysis.

Even without taking into consideration the increased traffic congestion along IL-120 that the growth of Wonder Lake will certainly bring, the development of any open land that would flow through that IL-120/IL-31 corridor (like the rejected Shodeen development) or any further Downtown District development, which would also flow through that IL-120/IL-31 corridor, would add to an already untenable situation.

Any future growth needs to be done in a sustainable way, with consideration for both the existing infrastructure limitations and how the development of surrounding municipalities will add to those limitations. The positioning of two state-controlled highways and the Fox River, in conjunction with the aggressive growth of neighboring communities, means McHenry needs to be particularly aware of the consequences that will arise with our own unrestrained growth.