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

080. Its Statement of Intent explains the district exists to provide for agricultural, recreational, wildlife, open space, farming and river-oriented uses and to discourage premature urban development, with a five-acre minimum lot size designed to support agricultural uses and home sites that require proper siting in a rural area. Within that district, agriculture, farming, dairy farming, livestock and poultry raising, forestry and farm stands are permissive uses, meaning no conditional use permit or public hearing is required, and the ordinance places no restriction on operating vehicles and machinery customarily incidental to farming.

The one hard number attached to that freedom is the setback: no feedlot, feeding floor, or livestock/poultry housing structure may sit within 150 feet of any property line. Related agricultural uses carry their own siting rules in the same section: private boarding stables must sit 50 feet from every property line at one horse or pony per acre, kennels approved as a conditional use need 150 feet of separation, and exotic or wild animals require a 10-acre site with feeding areas 150 feet from property lines.

510. District dimensional standards layer on top: 40-foot maximum building height, 50-foot front and rear yards, 40-foot side yards, and a 150-foot minimum lot width. Missouri's constitutional right-to-farm guarantee, Article I, Section 35, separately guarantees forever the right of farmers and ranchers to engage in farming and ranching practices statewide, reinforcing why the County built its lowest-density zoning district specifically around agricultural protection rather than folding farmland into ordinary residential zoning.