St. Louis County, MO Right to Farm: Agricultural Zoning Protection (2026)

Section 1003.107 creates the "NU" Non-Urban District to cover "areas within which rough natural topography, geological conditions, or location in relation to urbanized areas creates practical difficulties in providing and maintaining public roads, and public or private utility services and facilities," as well as areas "where significant non-urban uses have been established." Within that district, farming is not an afterthought: the permitted-use list puts "farming, including the cultivation and sale of any plant crops and domestic animals" and "dairy farming" alongside "commercial vegetable and flower gardening, as well as plant nurseries and greenhouses" (excluding any structure used as a standalone salesroom) as by-right uses requiring no conditional use permit or public hearing.

The district's lot-size table works in the same direction: a single-family dwelling in the "NU" District needs a 3-acre minimum lot, the same threshold applied to churches and group homes for the elderly, while farming itself carries no comparable minimum-acreage line in that table, leaving working farms unconstrained by the residential lot-size floor that keeps suburban-scale houses from crowding into the district. Accessory farm buildings still answer to the district's general accessory-structure rules: no more than two detached accessory structures per single-family residence (three counting a garage), a combined cap of 1,000 square feet of accessory floor area regardless of lot size, and a 7 percent lot-coverage limit for all detached accessory buildings together.