Hawaii County, HI Animal Ordinances: Veterinary Clinic Zoning (2026)

Chapter 25 (Zoning) has no dedicated veterinary article; instead each zoning district's permitted-use table states whether animal hospitals and veterinary establishments are allowed outright. Section 25-5-52(a) permits both Animal hospitals (item 4) and Veterinary establishments (item 22) by right in the RA district, alongside kennels (item 14, which need a minimum five-acre building site and structures set back at least one hundred feet from any lot line) and commercial or boarding stables under that same acreage and setback rule. Section 25-5-50 states the RA district is intended to be only within areas designated as being in the State land use rural or urban districts, so a parcel the State Land Use Commission has placed in the Agricultural or Conservation district cannot carry RA county zoning at all, regardless of what the county's own map shows.

The rules tighten in the County's mixed industrial-commercial district: Section 25-5-132(a) permits veterinary establishments (item 55) and kennels (item 27) only in sound-attenuated buildings, a soundproofing condition the code does not impose on the same uses in RA. Animal hospitals and veterinary establishments recur as permitted uses in several of the County's other district use tables too (commercial and agricultural districts among them), each carrying its own conditions under HCC chapter 25-5. There is no separate countywide veterinary-licensing chapter; professional licensing of the veterinarian is a state matter, while the county code governs only where the building can sit and, in MCX, how it must be built.