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Advisory Committee Materials | Planning Commission | Board of Adjustment Files | Floodplain Maps
Planning and Zoning
Zoning as conceived in the United States in the 1920s, is the division of a Municipality or County into districts for the purpose of regulating the use of private land. These zoning districts are usually shown on a map. Within each of these districts, the text of the Zoning Ordinance specifies the permitted uses, the density and bulk of the buildings, required yards, setbacks, required off-street parking, and other requisites to obtain permission to develop. The principal objective is to ensure that commercial and industrial development is segregated from residential areas. Although this concept has been subject to enormous stress over the last five decades, the basic foundation of most zoning ordinances today retains the design pioneered by those original regulations.
Zoning is an expression of the police power, the power to regulate activity by private persons for the health, safety, morals, and general welfare of the public. That power, under our federal system, rests with the State Legislatures. Authority to utilize zoning to regulate the development of private property is delegated to counties, cities, and townships, by the States.
Zoning ordinances do not regulate the design of streets, the installation of utilities, the reservation or dedication of parks, street right-of-ways, school sites, or other related matters. These are controlled by the County's Subdivision Ordinance. Zoning is not retroactive and therefore cannot be relied upon to correct conditions which existed prior to the adoption and implementation of land use controls.
Blue Earth County Code of Ordinances
The Blue Earth County Board of Commissioners
The County Board is the government body responsible for the enactment of an amendment to the text or map of the zoning district.
The Planning Commission
The Planning Commission makes recommendations to the County Board regarding development proposals after gathering facts at a Public Hearing mandated by the State Enabling Act. The Planning Commission holds public hearings to consider requests relating to conditional use permits, subdivision plats, Zoning Ordinance or zoning map amendments, and an assortment of other development and environmental issues. The County Board may or may not follow the Planning Commissionís recommendations.
The Board of Adjustment
The Board of Adjustment is a quasi-judicial citizen body which is appointed by the County Board. The Board of Adjustment has two basic functions; to hear requests from citizens for variances, and to consider appeals from citizens regarding interpretation of zoning regulations by the County's Land Use Administrator. Public hearings are held to gather facts and the decision of the Board of Adjustment is rendered in writing.
Zoning Actions
There are three traditional zoning actions that may occur as a result of requirements set forth by the Zoning Ordinance. These actions include amendments, variances and conditional uses. These actions are discussed below.
Amendments or Rezones
An amendment may modify the text of the County's Zoning Ordinance or any of the County's other official land use controls such as the Land Use Plan, the Feedlot Ordinance, Floodplain Ordinance, Shoreland Ordinance, and Subdivision Ordinance, or it may modify a zoning district designated on the County's official zoning map. An amendment to a zoning district is called a rezone.
Variances
A Variance grants the applicant permission to vary from the ordinance's standard requirements such as; setbacks, lot width or depth, lot coverage, and height limitations. Variance requests are heard by the Board of Adjustments. Decisions of the Board of Adjustment are final and may only be appealed to District Court. The principal used by the Board of Adjustment is that of hardship. To grant a Variance the Board of Adjustment must determine that a hardship exists which would deprive the landowner of all reasonable use of his land if the strict interpretation of the regulations are applied. A hardship created by the landowner is not justification for a Variance, nor is financial consideration alone. The Minnesota Courts have ruled that the Board of Adjustments may not grant a "use" Variance, that being a Variance which would allow the land to be used for a purpose prohibited by the Zoning Ordinance. This differs from a non-use Variance which would allow departure from a dimensional requirement. The Board of Adjustment may attach conditions to the Variance to ensure compliance and to protect adjacent property owners and the public interest.
Conditional Use Permits
There are some land uses that are not permitted in certain districts which may be acceptable if specific conditions are attached to protect the adjacent property owners and the public interest. These uses require a review process. The review process is called a Conditional Use Permit and includes an application processed through the Land Use Section, and a subsequent Public Hearing in front of the Planning Commission. The findings of fact from the Planning Commission is forwarded to the County Board with a recommendation for approval or denial. The County Board may attach conditions to an approval to protect the adjacent property owners and the public interest.
Common Zoning Terms
Accessory Building: A secondary building which is located on the same lot as the main building and the use of which is clearly incidental to the use of the main building.
Accessory Use: A use clearly incidental or accessory to the principal use of a lot or building located on the same lot as the principal use.
Agriculture: The cultivation of the soil and activities incidental thereto; the growing of soil crops in the customary manner on open tracts of land or other growing methods, and the accessory raising of livestock and poultry. The term shall include incidental retail selling by the producer of products raised on the premises.
Animal Unit (A.U.): "Animal Unit" means a unit of measurement used to compare differences in the production of animal manures that employs as a standard the amount of manure produced on a regular basis by a 1000 pound slaughter steer or heifer.
Bluff Line: The area on a site where the topography breaks sufficiently to warrant special consideration for the placement of a dwelling and septic system. Location of the bluff line shall be determined by the County Sanitarian and Land Use Administrator per specifications established in the shoreland regulations.
Building: Any structure for the shelter, support or enclosure of persons, animals, chattel or property of any kind.
Building Height: The vertical distance from the average of the highest and lowest point of that portion of the lot covered by the building, to the deck line of mansard roofs, and to the mean height between the eaves and ridge for all other style of roofs.
Building Setback Line: A line within a lot which defines the minimum distance between the building and property line in which buildings or structures may not be placed.
Certificate of Compliance: A letter from the Commissioner of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency to the owner of an animal feedlot stating that the feedlot meets the agency standards, and that the livestock operation does not create or maintain a pollution hazard, or if a potential pollution hazard existed, it has been corrected to meet MPCA requirements. The County Feedlot Officer may issue certain certificates of compliance subject to a delegation agreement with the MPCA.
Comprehensive Development Plan: A compilation of goals and policies adopted by ordinance, commonly known as a Land Use Plan, adopted and implemented by the Blue Earth County Board to guide development within the County for a specified period of time. This dynamic document is meant to be flexible and must be updated from time to time.
Community Sewer System: A system of sewage treatment and collection serving a group of building lots with the design and construction approved by the County and State.
Community Water System: A source of water and/or a water distribution system serving a group of building lots with it's design and construction approved by the County and State.
Conditional Use: Conditional use means a land use for development as defined by the Blue Earth County Zoning Ordinance that would not generally be appropriate, but may be allowed with specific conditions as provided for in the Zoning Ordinance upon finding that; (1) certain conditions exist as set forth in the Zoning Ordinance, (2) the use or development conforms to the Blue Earth County Land Use Plan, and (3) the use is compatible with the existing neighborhood.
Conditional Use Permit: A permit issued by the County Board in accordance with procedures specified in the County Zoning Ordinance which enable the County to assign site specific conditions and dimensions to a proposed use.
Depth of rear yard: The average horizontal distance between the rear line of the building and the center line of an alley, where an alley exists, otherwise a rear lot line.
Dwelling: A building or portion thereof, designed exclusively for residential occupancy. The term does not include motels, tents, tent trailers, travel trailers, or recreational vehicles.
Dwelling, Multiple: Building or portion thereof, designed exclusively for two or more families living independently of each other. The term includes double bungalows and duplexes.
Dwelling, Single Family: A detached building designed exclusively for occupancy by one family.
Earthen Storage Basin: For the purposes of the Feedlot Ordinance, an earthen storage basin is considered a manure storage area.
Essential Services: Overhead or underground electrical, gas, communication, hydrocarbon, steam or water transmission or distribution systems and structures, by public utilities or governmental departments or commissions or as are required for protection of the public health, safety, or general welfare, including towers, poles, wires, mains, drains, sewers, pipes, conduits, cables, fire alarm boxes, police call boxes, and accessories in connection herewith, but not including buildings.
Equal Degree of Encroachment: A method of measuring the location of flood way boundaries so that floodplain lands on both sides of a stream are capable of carrying a proportionate portion of the flood flow.
Family: Any number of individuals related by blood, marriage, adoption, or foster care, or not more than five persons not so related, maintaining a common household and using common cooking and kitchen facilities.
Family Immediate: Persons related by blood, marriage or certified legal instrument.
Feedlot: A lot or building, or combination of contiguous lots and buildings, intended for the confined breeding, raising, or holding of animals and specifically designed as a confinement area in which manure may accumulate, or where the concentration of animals is such that a vegetative cover cannot be maintained within the enclosure. For purposes of this part, open lots used for the feeding and rearing of poultry (poultry ranges) and barns, dairy farms, swine facilities, beef lots and barns, horse stalls, mink ranches and domesticated animal zoos, shall be considered to be animal feedlots. Pastures shall not be considered to be animal feedlots.
Feedlot-Dwelling Setback: The setback requirements between feedlot and dwellings are mutual. The distance between a feedlot and dwelling is measured from the nearest wall of any confinement building, the nearest edge of any manure storage structure, or the from the nearest fence line of any open confinement lot to the nearest wall of a dwelling.
Feedlot Officer: An individual appointed by the County Board, who is responsible for administering the Feedlot Ordinance.
Feedlot Ordinance: The Blue Earth County Livestock Manure Management Ordinance. The ordinance promulgated and adopted by the Blue Earth County Board on January 4, 1995, to provide the minimum acceptable standards relating to density, size, and location of animal feedlots in the county. The ordinance also provides for disposal of the animal wastes generated by the feedlots in an environmentally responsible manner.
Feedlot Permit: A tri-annual permit from the County Feedlot Officer to the owner of an animal feedlot stating that the feedlot meets the requirements of the Blue Earth County Feedlot Ordinance.
Flood: A temporary increase in the flow or stage of a stream, or in the stage of a lake that results in the inundation of normally dry areas.
Flood Fringe: That portion of the floodplain outside of the floodway. Flood fringe is synonymous with the term floodway fringe used in the insurance study for Blue Earth County.
Floodplain: The areas adjoining a water course which had been or hereafter may be covered by a regional flood.
Flood Proofing: A combination of structural provisions, changes, or adjustments to properties and structures subject to flooding, primarily for the reduction or elimination of flood damages.
Floodway: The channel of the water course and those portions of the adjoining floodplain which are reasonably required to carry and discharge the regional flood.
Home Occupation: Any occupation of a service character which is clearly secondary to the main use of the premises as a dwelling and does not change the character thereof or exhibit any exterior evidence of such secondary use, as set forth by the Blue Earth County Zoning Ordinance.
Junkyard: Land and buildings where waste, discarded or salvaged materials are bought, sold, exchanged, stored, packed, disassembled or handled, including, but not limited to scrap metal, rags, paper, rubber products, glass products, lumber products, and products resulting from the wrecking of automobiles or other vehicles, further that, the unenclosed storage of three or more inoperable and/or unlicensed vehicles or major appliances for a period of three months shall constitute a junkyard.
Kennel: A place where four or more dogs and four or more cats, or a combination of both over four months of age are boarded, bred, or offered for sale.
Land Use Plan: See Comprehensive Development Plan.
Livestock Manure Management Ordinance: See Feedlot Ordinance.
Lot: A parcel of land occupied or to be occupied by a principal structure or group of structures and accessory structures together with such yards, open spaces, lot width, and lot area as are required by the Zoning Ordinance, and having the required frontage upon a public street, either shown and identified by lot number on a plat of record, or considered as a unit of property and described by metes and bounds.
Lot Area: That area located within the lot lines, not including that portion of the platted lot which is presently being used as/or dedicated for street or public right-of-way.
Lot Depth: The shortest horizontal distance between the front lot line and the rear lot line measured at a ninety degree angle from the street right-of-way and within the lot boundaries.
Lot Frontage, Front: That portion of a lot boundary width abutting on a street right-of-way from which the lot is addressed.
Lot Width: The shortest horizontal distance between the lot lines measured at the building setback line and at right angles to the lot depth.
Manufactured Home Park: A contiguous parcel of land which has been planned for the placement of two or more manufactured homes or mobile home lots.
Manure Storage Area: Means an area associated with an animal feedlot where animal manure or runoff containing animal manure is stored until it can be utilized as domestic fertilizer or removed to a permitted manure disposal site. Animal manure packs or mounding within the feedlot shall not be considered to be manure storage areas for the purposes of the Feedlot Ordinance.
Non-conforming Use: A use lawfully in existence on the effective date of the Zoning Ordinance and not conforming to the regulations for the district in which it is situated.
Normal High Water Mark: A mark delineating the highest water level which has been maintained for a sufficient period of time to leave evidence upon the landscape. The normal high water mark is commonly that point where the natural vegetation changes from predominately aquatic to predominately terrestrial.
Open Space: Land areas which are undeveloped and left in their natural state.
Owner or Property Owner: The fee owner of land, or the beneficial owner of land, whose interest is primarily one of ownership or possession and enjoyment in contemplation of ultimate ownership. The term includes, but is not limited to, mortgagees and vendees under a contract for deed.
Permitted Use: A public or private use of a property which of itself conforms with the purposes, objectives, requirements, regulations and performance standards of a particular land use district.
Planned Development or Planned Unit Development: A large lot or tract of land developed as a unit rather than as individual development wherein two or more buildings may be located in relationship to each other rather than to lot lines or zoning district boundaries.
Planning Agency: The organization of the Planning Commission or Planning Department.
Quarry: Any pit or excavation made for the purpose of searching for or removal of any soil, earth, clay, sand, gravel, limestone, or other non-metallic minerals.
Quarter and Quarter-Quarter Sections: A division of a Section of land according to the rules of the original United States Government public land survey. A quarter refers to 160 acres or it's approximate, a quarter-quarter refers to 40 acres or it's approximate.
Regional flood: A flood which is representative of large floods known to have occurred generally in Minnesota and reasonably characteristic of what can be expected to occur on an average frequency in the magnitude of the 100 year recurrent interval. Regional flood is synonymous with the term base flood used in the flood insurance study.
Road: A public right-of-way affording primary access by pedestrians and vehicles to abutting properties, whether designated as a street, boulevard, thoroughfare, parkway, thruway, roadway, road, avenue, lane, place, or as otherwise described.
Solid Waste Landfill: A land disposal site employing an engineered method of disposing of solid waste on land in a manner that minimizes environmental hazards.
Setback: The minimum horizontal distance between a building and a center line of a roadway or lot line.
Shoreland: Land located within the following distances of public waters. (1) 1,000 feet from the ordinary high water mark of a lake, pond, or flowage, and (2) 300 feet from a river or stream, or (3) the landward extension of a designated floodplain, whichever is greater. The practical limits or shorelands may be less than the statutory limits whenever the waters involved are bounded by natural topographic divides which extend landward from the waters for lesser distances and when approved by the Commissioner of the DNR and Blue Earth County Commissioners.
Shoreland Ordinance: The Blue Earth County Shoreland Ordinance promulgated and adopted by the Blue Earth County Board to regulate development within shoreland areas as defined above.
Shoreland Setback: The minimum horizontal distance between a structure and the normal high water mark.
Structure: Anything constructed or erected, the use of which requires permanent location on the ground, including advertising devices or other construction or erection with special function or form, except fences and walks.
Subdivision: Includes the following parcels of land divided for the purpose of transfer of ownership or building development:
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A. For purposes of the Zoning Ordinance the division of land into parcels smaller than a quarter-quarter Section (40 acres) must be by subdivision when the split creates or leaves more than two parcels. No parcel may be less than 2 1/2 acres in size exclusive of right-of-ways.
B. A parcel of land for which development of a new public or private street or access serving more than one parcel is required.
Subdivision Ordinance: The ordinance promulgated and adopted by the Blue Earth County Board to provide the minimum acceptable standards relating to the subdivision of land within the county.
Travel Trailer: A vehicular portable structure built on a chassis, designed to be used as a temporary dwelling for travel, recreational and vacation uses, permanently identified as a travel trailer by the manufacturer of such trailer.
Use: The purpose for which land or premises or a building thereon is designated, arranged or intended, or for which it is, or may be occupied or maintained.
Variance: The waiving by the Board of Adjustment of the literal provisions of the Zoning Ordinance in cases where their strict enforcement would cause undue hardship because of the physical circumstances unique to the property involved. Variances are limited to density, bulk, height, setback, and yard requirements.
Yard, Front: The area extending across the front of a lot between the side yard lines and lying between the center line of the road or highway, and the nearest line of a building.
Zoning Ordinance: The zoning or land use ordinance promulgated and adopted by the Blue Earth County Board to regulate the use of private land within the County.
