Woodbury, MN Right to Farm: Agricultural Zoning Protection (2026)

Section 24-301 is Woodbury's core agricultural-zoning protection: any agricultural use already operating in the city on April 14, 1971 is grandfathered in as a permitted use, meaning it does not need to conform to whatever zoning district the land later ends up in. That protection is not unconditional. If the agricultural use is adjacent to or within 400 feet of a dwelling unit and could be detrimental to living conditions through safety hazards, noise, odor or vibration, or if the operation grows so intensive that it functions like an industrial use, compounding, processing or packaging products for wholesale or retail sale, the city council can require the operator to secure a conditional use permit before expanding or intensifying.

The Minnesota State Building Code is expressly excused from applying to agricultural buildings, aside from required state inspections or rulemaking, which spares farm structures from the commercial building code standards other structures face. Subsection (b) adds specific livestock standards: any building housing livestock must sit at least 125 feet from every lot line, livestock cannot be kept at all on a parcel smaller than five acres, and keeping more than one livestock animal per acre triggers the same conditional use permit requirement found in the animal-keeping rules at § 5-17.

The city council also retains authority to order a conditional use permit application any time it finds keeping livestock is in the interest of public health, safety or welfare.