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

Adopted March 3, 2025 by the Lee County Board of Commissioners under G.S. 106-735 through 106-744, Chapter 3 establishes the Lee County Agricultural Advisory Board and a voluntary agricultural district (VAD) and enhanced voluntary agricultural district (EVAD) program. Sec. 3-4 states the chapter's purpose is to promote agricultural values, encourage the economic health of agriculture, horticulture, and forestry, and decrease the likelihood of legal disputes, such as nuisance actions, between farm owners and their neighbors. Landowners with at least one acre in horticultural production, ten acres of field crops or livestock, or twenty acres under a forestry management plan may apply under Sec.

3-6 by executing a conservation agreement recorded with the Lee County Register of Deeds. Once enrolled, Sec. 3-11 requires the county to map the district and record notice within a half-mile of every enrolled tract, and Sec. 3-4(b)(2) explains the practical payoff: informing nonfarming neighbors and land purchasers up front that a participating farm may emit noise, dust, and smells, meant to head off nuisance claims before they start. Sec. 3-13 adds a further protection: no state or local agency may formally condemn qualifying farmland in a VAD or EVAD until the Agricultural Advisory Board holds a public hearing on the proposed taking.

Participation is voluntary and a landowner may withdraw with 30 days' written notice under Sec. 3-12, though EVAD conservation agreements run for an irrevocable ten-year term. This is a locally administered notice-and-hearing program layered on top of, not a replacement for, North Carolina's separate right-to-farm statute.