Ada County, ID Right to Farm: Agricultural Zoning Protection (2026)

Title 11, Chapter 1 of the Ada County Code creates the county's Agriculture Protection Area (APA) program (Ord. 989, adopted 12-18-2024). To qualify, the subject property must be at least five acres and must have been in active agricultural or forest production for a minimum of three consecutive years, consistent with Idaho Code sections 63-604 and 63-1701 (Section 11-1-4). An applicant submits a completed application, a property description, a letter explaining how the proposal meets the required findings, evidence of the three-year production history, and an application fee to the Development Services Department (Section 11-1-5(A)).

The county's Agriculture Protection Area Commission (APAC) must review the application and recommend action to the Board within sixty days, or the application is automatically approved (Section 11-1-5(B)). The Board then holds a public hearing within sixty days of the APAC recommendation, noticed under Idaho Code section 67-6509 and Title 8 of the county code, and votes to approve or deny based on the required findings in Section 11-1-6, which include that the land carries a Future Land Use Map designation supportive of agriculture or forestry and does not conflict with a city's area-of-impact expansion, annexation agreements, planned transportation corridors, or airport development.

Approved APAs are recorded with the Ada County Recorder's Office (Section 11-1-5(D)). Designations run for twenty years (Section 11-1-7(C)); expansion must be contiguous to the existing APA, and a landowner seeking reduction or early termination must request a Board meeting in writing and document a qualifying hardship, such as adverse litigation, a death-related financial hardship, major tax liability, or fraud-driven bankruptcy (Section 11-1-7(B), (D)).