Chapter 15 — Agricultural Districts, Article 1 — AGRICULTURAL DISTRICT (A1)

Land designated as agricultural constitutes a valuable natural resource whose protection is in the public interest. The Agricultural District is established to maintain those areas with land characteristics such as soil moisture, temperature and content suitable for farming (fields, pastures, farmsteads, specialty farms), dairy, livestock, forestry operations and other agricultural activities; to protect land used or needed for food production and other agricultural uses from encroachment by untimely and unplanned residential, commercial or industrial development; and to permit the continuation of agricultural uses in areas where it remains viable.

The agricultural district is intended to provide for the continuation of agriculture as a viable land use and component of the local economy until market conditions and public services support conversion of agricultural land to rural or suburban residential land subdivisions and uses, or other uses. The Agricultural District also helps to preserve the rural, open space character that exists in many portions of the County. Such areas are accessed only by rural roads, do not have existing public sanitary sewerage facilities, are predominantly rural in character, and consist substantially of larger unsubdivided and undeveloped tracts.