St. Tammany Parish, LA Right to Farm: Agricultural Zoning Protection (2026)

Sec. 400-7.F.1 states the overlay's purpose directly: the RO Rural Overlay is established "to permit agriculture uses, to encourage the maintenance of the rural countryside, to preserve forests and other undeveloped lands away from areas of population growth, and to allow residents to retain their traditional ways of life," adding that "the preferred land use in the district is agricultural, either active in the form of crops or passive in the form of forest management or pasture lands." Permitted uses under the overlay include single-family residences plus accessory structures and uses that support agriculture and related business.

The overlay backs that preference with real dimensional relief for farming. Under Sec. 400-7.F.3, agricultural uses require no front yard, no rear yard, and are not held to the standard side yard rules, while every other use in the district faces a 40-foot front setback from an arterial (30 feet from any other public road), 30 feet from the road on the sides, and 30 feet in the rear. Non-agricultural lots must be at least one acre, held to one dwelling unit per acre unless the property sits in an older recorded subdivision predating the parish's 1970 Subdivision Ordinance No. 499, and capped at 25 percent lot coverage. Building height in the overlay tops out at 35 feet, though the code carves out an exception letting farm structures like silos and windmills, along with radio and TV towers, exceed that limit as long as they add a foot of setback from existing homes for every foot they rise above 45 feet.