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<br />Conditional District Rezoning <br />During the last few years, County staff have received an increasing number of inquiries <br />regarding accessory uses to bona fide farms and related uses that are agricultural in <br />character, Examples include community-supported agriculture, corn mazes, teaching <br />farms, pick-your-own operations, and processing facilities with and without retail sales, All <br />of these uses are related to agriculture and provide farmers with supplemental income that <br />can be critical to the survival of their farms, They also provide urban and suburban <br />residents with a source for locally grown products and an opportunity to learn about <br />agriculture. <br />Currently, the Orange County Zoning Ordinance provides a process to rezone property from <br />Agricultural Residential (AR) to Agricultural Services (AS), Like high-density residential <br />districts, the AS district is a floating zoning district; it is defined in the ordinance but is not <br />applied to specific parcels until requested by a property owner. If the rezoning application is <br />approved, the landowner may use his or her property for any of the land uses allowed in the <br />A5 District. <br />Virtually all existing farm operations are located in one of the county's three main residential <br />zoning districts (Rural Buffer (RB), Rural Residential (R1), and Agricultural Residential <br />(AR)), The interdepartmental work group is suggesting that the County adopt conditional <br />district rezoning to provide for agricultural services in rural areas, Using this technique, <br />the Board of County Commissioners would review applications to rezone property using a <br />legislative decision process far a specific development plan. This would allow the Board to <br />consider the appropriateness of the particular planned use and limit approval to that specific <br />use. <br />Unlike the general rezoning, property subject to the conditional district rezoning process <br />may only be used for a specific land use. For example, a property owner could request that <br />his/her lot be rezoned far a feed store, and would provide a schematic site plan of what the <br />feed store would look like and how it would be designed on the site, Should the request be <br />approved the property owner could develop the feed store but no other commercial use, <br />Using the conditional district approach, the Board could allow some agriculturally-based <br />commercial ventures to occur in the rural parts of the county, based on fhe suitability of the <br />use to the particular community. An equestrian tack shop, for example, might make sense <br />in Bingham Township but not in Cedar Grove Township, <br />In summary, staff recommends revising the existing AS floating district so that property <br />owners could apply to have some of their property rezoned to AS using the conventional <br />rezoning or the conditional district rezoning process, Amendments to the zoning ordinance <br />would include a checklist outlining specifications for the site-specific development plan for <br />the new use, along with appropriate performance standards, Amendments to the Land Use <br />Element would address the consistency of the new use to the surrounding land uses, <br />Conditional district rezoning appears to be the most appropriate mechanism to allow <br />commercial/industrial farm uses into the rural parts of the county without disrupting the <br />existing residential zoning designations, Rezonings would be allowed based on the <br />appropriateness of a specific project to a specific community. <br />r7vri ~ cPbnr. _i1;Il 'el:~u llienn :; 2W n i.',~~: li i -I1b1~ ~ .~ v~~!:~ <br />