Rosemont makes EV charger ban in parking garages permanent

Rosemont — perhaps the first municipality in Illinois to prohibit the installation of electric vehicle charging stations in parking garages — has made its temporary moratorium a permanent one.

The ban, put in place Monday by the village board, is indefinite, until “they can figure out how to do this stuff safe,” said Mayor Brad Stephens.

Rosemont’s initial one-year ban approved in March 2025 was prompted by a raging car fire in the Fashion Outlets of Chicago parking garage on Jan. 18, 2024. At the same time, village building department officials were getting requests from other building owners for permission to install electric vehicle chargers inside their garages.

No business owners have since asked to install chargers indoors — “most everybody has space outside” in parking lots, Stephens said — while there haven’t been any other reported car fires fueled by long-burning lithium ion batteries.

But Stephens cited safety precautions for the new ban, which only governs EV chargers within parking garages and basements.

Fashion Outlets — the indoor mall across the street from the Rosemont Theatre and village hall — has six charging stations on the first floor of its 2,800-space parking garage, where the car fire occurred. Ten other chargers are on the sixth floor.

Under the ordinance, building owners don’t have to remove charging stations that have already been installed — they just can’t install new ones.

Since Rosemont’s original moratorium, other towns in the Northwest suburbs have approved regulations of their own.

Arlington Heights trustees in July passed a prohibition on charger installations in underground parking structures and those with residential space above, limiting them to open-air top floors of garages and surface lots.

Des Plaines limits chargers to surface lots or primary access levels. Elk Grove Village prohibits them in parking structures beneath buildings. Schaumburg prohibits level three chargers — so-called DC fast — inside parking structures.

cplacek@dailyherald.com