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<br />§ 153A-342. Districts; zoning less than entire jurisdiction. <br />(a) A county may divide its territorial jurisdiction into districts of any number, <br />shape, and area that it may consider best suited to carry out the purposes of this Part. <br />Within these districts a county may regulate and restrict the erection, construction, <br />reconstruction, alteration, repair, or use of buildings, structures, or land. Such districts <br />may include, but shall not be limited to, general use districts, in which a variety of uses <br />are permissible in accordance with general standards; overlay districts, in which <br />additional requirements are imposed on certain properties within one or more <br />underlying general or special use districts; special use districts or conditional use <br />districts, in which uses are permitted only upon the issuance of a special use permit•or a <br />conditional use permit and conditional zoning districts, in which site plans and <br />individualized development conditions are imposed. <br />(b) Property may be placed in a special use district, conditional use district, or <br />conditional district only in response to a petition by the owners of all the property to be <br />included. Specific conditions applicable to the districts may be proposed by the <br />petitioner or the county or its agencies, but only those conditions mutually approved by <br />the county and the petitioner may be incorporated into the zoning regulations or permit <br />requirements. Conditions and site-specific standards imposed in a conditional district <br />shall be limited to those that address the conformance of the development and use of the <br />site to county ordinances and an officially adopted comprehensive or other plan and <br />those that address the impacts reasonably expected to be generated by the development <br />or use of the site. <br />A statement analyzing the reasonableness of the proposed rezoning shall be prepared <br />for each petition for a rezoning to a special or conditional use district, or a conditional <br />district, or other small-scale rezoning. <br />(c) Except as authorized by the foregoing, all regulations shall be uniform for <br />each class or kind of building throughout each district, but the regulations in one district <br />may differ from those in other districts. <br />(d) A county may determine that the public interest does not require that the <br />entire territorial jurisdiction of the county be zoned and may designate one or more <br />portions of that jurisdiction as a zoning area or areas. A zoning area must originally <br />contain at least 640 acres and at least 10 separate tracts of land in separate ownership <br />and may thereafter be expanded by the addition of any amount of territory. A zoning <br />area may be regulated in the same manner as if the entire county were zoned, and the <br />remainder of the county need not be regulated. (1959, c. 1006, s. 1; 1965, c. 194, s. 2; <br />1973, c. 822, s. l; 1985, c. 607, s. 3; 2005-426, s. 6(b).) <br />G.S. 153A-342 Page 1 <br />