Casper, WY Right to Farm: Agricultural Zoning Protection (2026)

Casper's Title 17 zoning code carves out the AG Urban Agriculture district specifically to protect space for keeping animals inside city limits. Section 17.24.010 states the district exists 'to establish and preserve areas for semi-rural, low density residential, and related or compatible uses' and 'to provide within this zone, an adequate amount of space for livestock and poultry, as is essential to meet appropriate health standards.' Section 17.24.020 turns that purpose into a permitted-use list: item one allows 'the keeping and raising of food animals and pleasure animals' along with gardens, orchards, and crops as a matter of right, without a conditional use hearing, alongside conventional single-family dwellings and manufactured homes.

Section 17.24.040 backs the purpose clause with numeric standards: lots without public water and sewer need two acres, lots with public utilities need one acre, and front, rear, and side yards must each be thirty feet. Subsection (C) sets minimum space per animal for dry-lot confinement, requiring three hundred square feet of soil-surfaced open shed floor for each beef cow or steer and each horse, two and one-half square feet of controlled environment space per chicken, twenty-five square feet of open lot per sheep, and one hundred square feet of unsurfaced lot per hog.

Kennels, stables, and riding academies are not automatic; section 17.24.030 lists them as conditional uses requiring commission approval. The AG district is the only residential-scale zone in Casper's code built specifically around livestock keeping; the R-1 through R-6 districts contain no equivalent permitted use.