Spokane County, WA Right to Farm: Agricultural Zoning Protection (2026)

616 creates the Resource Lands classifications, including the Large Tract Agricultural (LTA) and Small Tract Agricultural (STA) zones, to protect and preserve the county's agriculture and forest resources and avoid their irrevocable loss. The LTA zone sets residential density at one unit per forty acres and is meant for commercial crop production such as small grains, legumes and grass seed, with residential uses tied to farming operations; the STA zone allows one unit per ten acres for berry, dairy, fruit, grain, vegetable and Christmas tree production, plus direct marketing of farm products to the public.

410 controls how land can leave these zones. Any reclassification out of LTA or STA must go through a concurrent comprehensive plan amendment, and no parcel can be rezoned out of the LTA zone if twenty-five percent or more of its soil is USDA-NRCS Class I or II, or fifty percent or more is Class I, II, III or designated farmland of statewide importance, unless the average slope exceeds twenty percent or man-made or natural features already act as a barrier to normal agricultural operations.

510 resource activity notification in the deed, disclosing proximity to designated agricultural, forest or mineral land. Applications to rezone must include an NRCS soils map, a calculation of soil-class percentages, and a slope map if any slope exceeds twenty percent. 170.