Westminster, CA Right to Farm: Agricultural Zoning Protection (2026)

020, Agriculture Uses, is Westminster's zoning provision addressing farming activity, and it operates as a permitted-use list rather than a right-to-farm nuisance shield. Subsection A states that in all residential zoning districts, R1 through R5, agricultural and horticultural farming is allowed outright, along with flower and vegetable gardening and nursery or greenhouse operations limited to propagation and cultivation rather than retail sales. The purpose clause frames this as a compatibility measure: the City permits small-scale agricultural activity in residential areas as long as it does not create the kind of impact associated with larger commercial operations.

Five categories are carved out of that blanket permission and therefore require separate zoning review elsewhere in the code: commercial dairies; commercial kennels or rabbit, fox, goat, and other animal-raising farms; egg-producing ranches and poultry operations run on a commercial scale, including hatching, raising, fattening, or butchering; hog and other livestock-feeding ranches; and ranches used publicly or privately to dispose of garbage, sewage, rubbish, or offal. Because the exclusions single out commercial-scale and industrial-type agricultural operations, a resident growing vegetables, keeping a home garden, or propagating plants in a residential backyard greenhouse does not need a permit under this Section, while anyone running a dairy, feedlot, or commercial poultry operation must look to the City's general zoning and permit provisions for the applicable commercial or agricultural-zoned district.