Cleveland County, NC Right to Farm: Farm Nuisance Protection (2026)

Article XVII of the Unified Development Ordinance backs Cleveland County's farmland preservation program with a recorded notice rather than a blanket immunity from nuisance suits. Section 12-361 requires the county's geographic information system to flag any tract within a half mile of a voluntary agricultural district, and requires a standing notice titled 'Notice to Real Estate Purchasers in Cleveland County' to be posted in the register of deeds office. That notice tells buyers that agricultural activities including pesticide spraying, manure spreading, machinery and truck operations, livestock operations and sawing may take place in the districts any time during the day or night, and directs buyers to the register of deeds, the Natural Resource and Conservation Service office, and the building inspector's office for district maps.

Section 12-361(b) shields the county, its officers, employees and agents from damages for good-faith misfeasance, malfeasance or nonfeasance in carrying out this notice duty, and section 12-361(c) bars any cause of action against someone who researches a title but fails to report a tract's proximity to a qualifying farm or district. The article's stated purpose, in section 12-353, is to decrease the likelihood of legal disputes such as nuisance actions between farm owners and their neighbors, and section 12-360 backs that up with a condemnation safeguard: a state or local agency cannot formally initiate condemnation of land in a district until the county's Agricultural Advisory Board has held a public hearing on the proposal and reported its findings.