Buying Farm Land in Fremont County, Colorado

The livestock 'equality formula': how the county counts mixed animals toward density limits

Fremont County's zoning resolution allows agriculture, livestock, poultry, and rabbits in its agricultural districts, but excludes feedlots, dairy farms, and fur-bearing animal farms -- and rather than setting a flat per-species headcount, it converts different kinds of animals into a shared unit through what the resolution treats as a livestock equivalency: one horse or cow counts the same as two llamas or hogs, four ostriches, five alpacas, sheep, or goats, or 25 poultry or rabbits. In practice, this means you can't just count "how many horses" a parcel's zoning allows without knowing whether other animals are already on the property, since a mixed herd of cattle, goats, and chickens all draws down the same density allowance rather than each species having its own separate cap.

If your plans involve a specific mix of livestock -- say, a small cattle herd alongside goats and a chicken flock -- work through this conversion with the parcel's actual zoning district and acreage before you assume the property supports your plan, and confirm the current formula and any district-specific density limit directly with the Department of Planning and Zoning, since zoning resolutions of this kind are amended periodically and a cached PDF found through a search engine may not reflect the current version.

Agricultural buildings: permit-exempt, but not paperwork-exempt

Fremont County treats qualifying agricultural buildings as exempt from a standard building permit, but a 2021 zoning code change added a real intermediate step: rather than being able to put up an agricultural building with no notice to the county at all, an owner now has to submit plans -- including a plot map -- to the Department of Planning and Zoning for a conformity determination confirming the building meets the zoning resolution's definition of "Agricultural Building" and complies with setback requirements. There's no permit fee for this review, and no building permit is issued, but the submission becomes a permanent record that both the Building Department and the Assessor's Office rely on going forward.

For a buyer, this cuts two ways: if you're planning to put up a barn, hay shed, or similar structure, budget the time for this plan-review step even though there's no permit fee attached to it, and don't assume "exempt from permit" means "no county involvement at all." And if you're buying a parcel with an existing barn or outbuilding that the current owner describes as an agricultural building, ask whether that structure went through the conformity-determination process -- a structure that was never reviewed against the zoning definition could turn out not to qualify for that exemption if the county later takes a closer look, which matters for both zoning compliance and how the Assessor treats the improvement.

Zoning districts: where the 9-acre minimum applies, and where it does not

Fremont County's zoning resolution includes multiple agricultural-flavored districts -- among them Agricultural Farming & Ranching, Agricultural Forestry, Agricultural Living, and a residential-agricultural district with a 9-acre minimum lot size aimed at low-density residential development that still retains land for agriculture, livestock, or crops. These districts are not identical to each other in their permitted uses or minimums, so "agricultural zoning" in Fremont County is not a single uniform rule -- confirm which specific district applies to a parcel, and what its actual minimum lot size and permitted-use list say, before assuming the 9-acre figure applies to every agriculturally-zoned property in the county.