Kingsport, TN Right to Farm: Agricultural Zoning Protection (2026)

Kingsport Code § 114-135 starts with the words Notwithstanding any other section of this chapter, so it overrides the district tables in Chapter 114. Land used solely for agricultural, farming, dairying, stock raising or similar purposes has no regulations imposed as to height, yard, location or court requirements for agricultural buildings. The word solely is the test: a parcel with a mixed use does not receive the exemption, and the exemption reaches agricultural buildings, not the house.

Two limits survive. A setback can still be required for the protection of existing and proposed streets and rights-of-way. And all buildings or structures in a floodway or floodplain, or which tend to increase flood heights or obstruct the flow of floodwaters, can be fully regulated. The City of Kingsport keeps its flood hazard overlay, which Sec. 114-179(a) says overlays any other zoning district when flood hazards exist.

The zoning map gives farming a home in the A-1 Agricultural District. Sec. 114-174 says the district recognizes the agricultural needs of the community, serves as a holding zone for newly annexed areas where additional study is necessary, and permits single-family use. Sec. 114-181 lists customary general farming and horticulture and the commercial raising of livestock and poultry as principal uses, with garages, barns and other customary farm accessory buildings as accessory uses. The note to that section bars commercial livestock and poultry raising on less than five acres and keeps poultry housing at least 200 feet from a property line. Sec. 114-136 also excludes barns, silos and other farm structures on farms from height limits.

The code defines agriculture in Sec. 114-1 as the use of land for farming, dairying, pasturage, animal and poultry husbandry and other similar uses, plus the necessary accessory uses for packing, treating or storing the produce, provided those accessory uses remain secondary to the principal agricultural activity. Kingsport's Chapter 114 protects agricultural buildings from yard and height rules but does not print a nuisance-suit shield of the kind a right-to-farm statute provides.