San Diego County, CA Right to Farm: Agricultural Zoning Protection (2026)

), which trades reduced property tax assessments for a landowner's contract to keep land in agricultural use. Under Section 5102, the A preserve designator attaches to parcels subject to agricultural use regulations or the S80 Use Regulations that the Board has placed within a designated agricultural preserve. Section 5105 splits treatment by contract status: land under an active Land Conservation Act contract is restricted to the uses listed in that contract, and a groundwater extraction operation that is either a legal nonconforming use or approved by major use permit counts as a contract-authorized use.

Land not under contract follows the applicable zoning use regulations, except that any use requiring a Minor or Major Use Permit must satisfy Section 5110's compatibility findings, and Postal Services and Parking Services use types are barred outright regardless of underlying zoning. Section 5110 requires two affirmative findings before any use permit issues near a preserve: first, that the proposed use complies with the Land Conservation Act itself, and second, that it would not be incompatible with the continued agricultural use of preserve land. The Director and decision-making body must weigh four specific compatibility factors when making that second finding: whether the new use would increase vandalism, invite pet damage to crops or livestock, trigger restrictions on agricultural spraying, noise or smell coming from the farm, or interfere with farm machinery and product movement.

Practically, this means a homeowner or business seeking a discretionary permit adjacent to preserve land bears the burden of showing the County that their use will not choke off the farm's normal operating practices, functioning as the County's local right-to-farm safeguard even though it is codified as a zoning-permit standard rather than a nuisance-immunity statute.