Terrebonne Parish, LA Right to Farm: Agricultural Zoning Protection (2026)

Terrebonne Parish Code Sec. 28-50 establishes the Open Land (O-L) District as the parish's agricultural holding zone: land composed mainly of large, un-subdivided tracts that are vacant or used for agriculture or forestry. The stated purpose is to keep that open character intact until a specific development plan is prepared, by barring scattered residential, business or industrial uses unrelated to a general development plan that could interfere with the land's best future use. The code contemplates that O-L land will eventually be reclassified to a residential, commercial or industrial district once it is subdivided into urban building sites, using the ordinary zoning-amendment procedure.

Within O-L Districts, agriculture and livestock or poultry raising, including dairy operations, are uses permitted by right, meaning no special exception or planning-commission approval is required beyond the standard permit process; the raising of swine, however, is expressly prohibited under the chapter's agriculture definition at Sec. 28-1. Other by-right uses in the O-L District include ordinary accessory uses, archery ranges, and public parks or playgrounds. Uses such as outdoor advertising structures, pipelines, and revival churches require planning approval, while uses like airports, cemeteries, correctional institutions and utility substations need board of adjustment approval as special exceptions.

O-L parcels carry a thirty-five-foot height limit and required yards of twenty-five feet front, ten feet side and twenty-five feet rear. This zoning applies only within the zoned areas of Terrebonne Parish, meaning the former City of Houma and other specifically zoned areas; land outside those zoned areas is governed instead by Chapter 29 Land Use.