Fox Lake Just Cut Its Short-Term Rental Cap. Here's What Changed.
Here's a question worth sitting with if you own property in Fox Lake: what happens when the rules you built your investment strategy around keep moving? Shopping or selling on the water? Start with the Chain O'Lakes waterfront homes guide.
Because that's exactly what's happening. Only now it's not a maybe.
Short-term rentals in Fox Lake have never been a settled thing. They've been a moving target for years, and the Village just moved it again — this time for real, with a vote on the books.
Let's back up.
How We Got Here
There was a time, not that long ago, when Fox Lake didn't cap short-term rentals at all. Then came Ordinance 2023-03 in February 2023, followed by Ordinance 2024-12 in April 2024. Together, they built the cage STR owners operate inside today, spelled out in Section 9-1-5-16 of the Village's zoning code.
The framework is tighter than a lot of owners realize. Sixty licenses, total, village-wide, no matter how many people want in. No new license without the Board of Trustees signing off as a special use — and that only comes after a public hearing. And here's the part that trips people up every time: the license belongs to you, not the property. Sell the house, and the license doesn't follow the deed. It just ends.
Read that last part again. A short-term rental approval isn't an asset. It's a permission slip with your name on it, and it expires the moment you hand over the keys.
Now It's Official
In June 2026, the Village posted notice of a hearing on cutting the number of allowable STR licenses. That hearing happened July 8, in front of the Planning & Zoning Commission — an advisory body, so nothing was decided there. The decision came a week later.
On July 14, the Village Board took it up as Ordinance 2026-26, sitting quietly on the consent agenda. Nobody pulled it off for discussion. All six trustees voted aye. Six to zero, and the cap dropped from 60 licenses to 51 — the number Village staff say matches how many are currently active. In plain terms: the pool isn't shrinking toward some future target. It's already at capacity, right now, with zero room for a new owner to get in line.
One thing this ordinance didn't do: nobody's existing license got pulled. This was a ceiling change, not a purge. But that ceiling is now the floor of what's already in use — which is its own kind of message.
A small housekeeping note, in case you go looking for the number yourself: Fox Lake's online zoning code still shows the old limit of 60 as of this writing. That's just a lag in getting the amendment incorporated online, not a sign the vote didn't happen.
What This Actually Means for You
Strip away the ordinance numbers and here's what you're left with: a licensing system that's already been rewritten three times now, a hard cap that just got smaller, an approval that dies at closing regardless, and a Board that acted on all of it without so much as a public discussion. That's not a rule. That's a pattern. And patterns are worth paying attention to before they cost you something.
If you've been eyeing the exit on your Fox Lake property because the STR path feels wobbly — or because you're not sure a tighter cap would even leave room for you — hold off on listing just yet. A shifting ordinance is a reason to rethink how you use the property. It's not automatically a reason to give it up.
Long-term rental income has a quality short-term rentals will never have: it doesn't ask the Village's permission every renewal cycle. It's not sitting in a pool of fifty-one, waiting to see if next year's vote shrinks it further. With solid management behind it, a long-term rental throws off steady, predictable returns — no licensing gamble attached.
That's the shift we help owners make. Instead of selling into uncertainty, keep the asset and let us run it — Tenant Placement or full-service Property Management, from finding and screening residents to handling everything that comes after.
The short-term rental rules in Fox Lake may keep changing. Your income doesn't have to.
July 8 P&Z agenda packet and proposed ordinance
P&Z minutes archive — July 8 minutes not presently posted
July 14 Village Board minutes showing the vote
