Floyd County, GA Right to Farm: Agricultural Zoning Protection (2026)

The Unified Land Development Code of Floyd County and the City of Rome sets up more than a dozen zoning districts, and A-R Agricultural Residential is the one built around farming. 2(a) states the district is established to provide areas for agricultural and forestry uses and residential development, giving farm and forestry operations a zoning category of their own rather than folding them into ordinary residential rules. The same subsection treats manufactured and mobile homes more permissively in this district when the land sits outside the City of Rome: they're permitted with limitations throughout the A-R District in the unincorporated county, while a Special Use Permit is required for the same use inside the small portion of the district that falls within city limits.

2(b), reinforces the county's tolerance for farming outside the dedicated agricultural district too, since it allows all forms of agricultural crop production and forestry in addition to residential development. Floyd County's land-disturbance rules dovetail with this zoning approach: Sec. 2-20-3(5) of the county's soil erosion ordinance exempts agricultural operations, defined to include raising, harvesting, or storing crops, feeding or managing livestock and poultry, and farm buildings and farm ponds, from the permit otherwise required under Chapter 2-20. Together, the zoning designation and the erosion-control exemption give farming a materially lighter regulatory footprint in unincorporated Floyd County than most other land uses face.