Hamilton County, TN Animal Ordinances: Veterinary Clinic Zoning (2026)

Article IV, § 1301(D) of the Hamilton County Zoning Regulations lists 17 uses that are prohibited expressly in the C-2 Local Business Commercial District, and item (15) is veterinary hospitals. The list, last amended by Resolution 421-54 on April 21, 2021, also bars auto wrecking yards, junk yards, laundries, machine shops, storage warehouses, manufactured home parks, and railroad switching or storage yards, treating a veterinary hospital as incompatible with C-2's retail and personal-service character. The Zoning Regulations do not separately define or affirmatively list 'veterinary hospital' as a permitted use in any other district's use-regulations section (§ 101, 201, 501, 601, 701, 801, 901, 1001, 1101, 1201, 1401, 1601, 1701, 1801 or 1901); the only other appearance of the phrase in the whole code is an unrelated biohazard-waste definition referencing 'research in veterinary hospitals' among medical-waste sources, which has no bearing on where a clinic can be sited.

That means an operator proposing a veterinary hospital in unincorporated Hamilton County must confirm the specific district's own permitted-use list before purchasing or leasing a site, since C-2 is affirmatively closed to the use and no district affirmatively opens it. Where a desired site sits in C-2 or another district that omits veterinary hospitals from its permitted-use list, the applicant's options are a rezoning application to the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Regional Planning Commission or a variance request to the Hamilton County Board of Zoning Appeals; neither is guaranteed and both require a public hearing.