9215 Smithville Rd, Mapleton, IL 61547

Agricultural Preservation District

The A-1 Agricultural District is established to conserve farmland and to encourage continued agricultural activities, thereby helping to ensure that sustainable agriculture will continue as a long term land use and a viable economic activity within the County. The A-1 District is also established to preserve natural features and the rural landscape, while allowing low density residential development that minimizes its impact on agricultural land, farming operations and sensitive environmental features. The preferred land use in the A-1 District is agriculture. The District is intended to permit a range of uses related to agriculture, to encourage the preservation of large blocks of farmland, and to permanently protect from development the tracts of land which remain after permitted residential development has occurred. More specifically, the District is established to severely restrict non-farm development in predominantly agricultural areas in order to: Preserve productive agricultural land for continued food and fiber production; Protect productive farms from encroachment by incompatible non-farm uses; Maintain the County's existing agricultural base to support agricultural processing and related service industries; and; Preserve the maximum freedom of operation for those legitimate agricultural purposes permitted in this District.