Design, hardscapes and drainage for Burlington, Lily Lake and Virgil, where the parcels get bigger and the permit desk is not always the village hall.
Burlington, Lily Lake and Virgil sit together on the western side of Kane County, and they have more in common with each other than any of them has with the Fox River towns. Larger parcels, fewer sidewalks, more sky, and a very different set of expectations about what a yard is for.
We have put them on one page deliberately. Writing three near-identical pages for three small villages would be padding, and you would learn less from it. What actually differs between them is which building department your address answers to, and that is worth getting right before anything is ordered. For everything we do, see our services, or the other towns we serve.
Out here the practical question is not usually what the rules are. It is whose rules apply to your particular address.
Kane County provides building code enforcement for unincorporated areas and for three villages: Big Rock, Kaneville and Virgil. If you are in Virgil, the permit goes through the county's Building and Zoning Division rather than a village hall.
Burlington and Lily Lake are separately incorporated, so their own village offices are the starting point. We confirm which authority applies to a specific parcel before a design gets finished, because it changes the paperwork and the timeline.
Kane County adopted the 2021 International Code Council family, effective for permit applications received from the first of January 2022. Where the county has jurisdiction, that is the standard the work gets measured against.
On a big parcel a plan is what stops the yard becoming a mowing schedule. It also gives whichever building department you are dealing with something clear to approve.
Bigger ground, longer drives and more open exposure all move more water. Grading and drainage come before anything decorative gets planted.
Patios and walks scaled to a rural parcel rather than a village lot. The most common mistake out here is building something too small for the space it sits in.
Comparable ground on the DeKalb County side. A full property redesign drawn as a 3D plan, then built out with trench edging, beds, irrigation and a stone walkway.
A front yard redesign that began as a drawing: overgrown planting out, grade corrected, trench edging and irrigation in.
What homeowners here ask us most, answered straight.
Burlington, Lily Lake and Virgil. They sit together on the western side of Kane County and share the same working conditions: larger parcels, more exposure, and fewer of the constraints that shape a job in the Fox River towns. We have grouped them rather than writing three thin pages that would each tell you the same thing.
It depends on the address. Kane County provides building code enforcement for unincorporated areas and for three villages, one of which is Virgil, so permits there go through the county's Building and Zoning Division. Burlington and Lily Lake are separately incorporated and start with their own village offices. We confirm which applies to your specific parcel before the design is finished, because it changes both the paperwork and the timeline.
Where Kane County has jurisdiction, the county adopted the 2021 International Code Council family, including the 2021 International Residential Code, effective for permit applications received on or after the first of January 2022. Incorporated villages set their own adopted codes, which is another reason the first question is always which authority you are dealing with.
Design earns more out here than it does on a village lot, not less. On a quarter acre the options are obvious. On several acres, the decisions that matter are which parts become garden, which stay open, where the drive and the drainage want to go, and what you deliberately leave alone. Those are cheap to get right on paper and expensive to fix after planting.
Permit and code requirements described on this page reflect Kane County and village guidance published as of September 2026. Codes change and jurisdiction varies by parcel. Confirm current requirements with the relevant authority before starting work.
This corner of the county runs into Elburn one way and Maple Park the other, and we cover the whole of it.
Tell us the address and we will work out whose permit you need before we draw anything. Free on-site estimate, no pressure.
