Lake in the Hills residents currently have essentially no practical way to legally keep managed honeybee colonies on normal residential property.

Under the current Village Municipal and Zoning Codes, beekeeping is treated as an agricultural/apiary use and is generally prohibited outside the A-1 Agricultural Zoning District. A-1 zoning requires a minimum property size of 40 acres. In practical terms, this means responsible hobby beekeeping is effectively prohibited for ordinary homeowners in our community.

We are asking the Village of Lake in the Hills to change that—not by allowing unrestricted beekeeping, but by creating reasonable regulations specifically for residential hobby beekeeping.

Other Illinois communities already allow residential beekeeping with sensible safeguards such as limits on the number of hives, setbacks or flyway barriers, fresh-water requirements, proper hive maintenance, swarm and nuisance management, and Illinois Department of Agriculture registration.

A formal text amendment is now being submitted to Lake in the Hills proposing a similar approach.

We are asking the Village Board and Planning & Zoning Commission to support an ordinance that allows responsible residential/hobby beekeeping as an accessory residential use subject to reasonable health, safety, and nuisance-control standards.

This petition demonstrates that Lake in the Hills residents support considering reasonable regulation instead of an effective prohibition.

If you agree, please sign—and if you are a Lake in the Hills resident, please consider leaving a comment explaining why you support the change. Those local voices will be especially important when this proposal reaches the public hearing.