West Palm Beach, FL Right to Farm: Agricultural Zoning Protection (2026)

West Palm Beach's zoning code flatly bars agricultural production and livestock keeping as a land use. Section 94-272's Permitted Use Table designates "Agricultural production, livestock," covering every Standard Industrial Classification major group 0-2 use, as a prohibited use citywide, carved out only by a community-garden pilot program the table itself says expired December 31, 2013. Sec. " The table then lists agricultural production and livestock among the "PROHIBITED USES LISTED AND DEFINED," alongside mining, logging, and hunting and trapping operations, treating farming as an incompatible urban use rather than a protected one.

Even the narrow community-garden exception is capped hard: Sec. 94-273(a)'s Community Gardens standards, which govern the one permitted form of urban agriculture, separately state that "the raising of poultry or other livestock, fish, and the keeping of bees shall be prohibited," and bar any property owner in a community garden from seeking an agricultural tax exemption. Florida's Right to Farm Act shows up in the city's own code only once, and not as a zoning protection: Sec. 14," from the city's fertilizer-application ordinance, a stormwater rule, not a use right.

Violations of the zoning chapter, including operating a prohibited agricultural or livestock use, are enforced under Sec. 94-9 by the planning and zoning administrator, who investigates written complaints and can pursue court action to enjoin or abate the use in addition to standard code enforcement.