Rockingham County, VA Right to Farm: Farm Nuisance Protection (2026)

Rockingham County's zoning ordinance builds its right-to-farm protection directly into the purpose sections of its two agricultural zoning districts rather than into a single stand-alone ordinance. Sec. 02(b), governing the A-1 Prime Agricultural district, states that agricultural and forestal activities shall be regulated only to the extent necessary to protect public health and safety, and that people who choose to live in the A-1 district should expect agricultural and forestal activities to produce noise, odors, and other effects as part of day-to-day operations. Sec. 02(c) repeats the identical protection for the A-2 General Agricultural district.

Together these sections mean a new resident or a special use permit applicant in either agricultural district cannot use a nuisance complaint over ordinary farm noise, dust, or odor to force the county to restrict a bona fide agricultural or forestal operation; regulation is reserved for genuine health-and-safety concerns, not routine day-to-day farm effects. The protection sits alongside Sec. 6, the state's agritourism and agribusiness protection statute, be interpreted using the Board of Supervisors' June 18, 2014 resolution reprinted as Appendix A to chapter 17, and alongside the county's poultry- and hog-operation setback rules in Sec.

17-607, which give specific siting distances rather than open-ended nuisance exposure. A-1 and A-2 also carry only a six-contiguous-acre minimum lot size, keeping most working farmland eligible for the protection.