Key Legal Issues
County Zoning
David W. Owens, Professor,
Institute of Government, The University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill, CB# 3330, Knapp Building, UNC-CH, Chapel
Hill, N.C. 27599-3330
July 2002
While zoning authority was adopted for
North Carolina cities in 1923, zoning came later to
rural areas. The general county zoning-enabling act
was adopted in 1959 (although several of the more urban
counties had earlier received zoning authority through
local legislation). Every county now has general authority
to enact zoning throughout the part of the county that
lies outside of municipal planning and zoning jurisdiction.
Counties also have the option of zoning
only part of the unincorporated portion of the county.
G.S. 153A-342 requires that such an area contain at
least 640 acres and have at least ten tracts in separate
ownership. Subsequent additions to these zoned areas
may be of any size. Some counties have used this authority
to adopt zoning in areas immediately around cities,
around lakes and recreation areas, or in densely populated
townships while leaving the more rural portions of the
counties uzoned.
There has been a steady trend over the
past decade for extension of county zoning. In 1964
only a single county (Durham) had countywide zoning.
The map below illustrates which counties have adopted
zoning as of July 2002. The 52 counties in blue have
countywide zoning, the 18 in orange have partial county
zoning, and the 30 in white are unzoned. For the most
part the unzoned counties are those with low population
densities. 28 of the 30 counties with no zoning have
population densities below the state average of 163
persons per sq. mile (the two exceptions are Vance and
Alamance Counties); 22 of the unzoned counties have
population densities under 75 persons per sq. mile.
Status
of County Zoning in North Carolina July 2002 (map)
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