Zoning in Des Moines County, Iowa

How the two-mile zoning boundary works

Most Iowa counties adopt zoning that covers the entire unincorporated county under the state's Chapter 335 county zoning authority. Des Moines County took a narrower approach: its Zoning Ordinance (No. 34) applies only to unincorporated land within a two-mile radius measured from the corporate limits of the City of Burlington. The county's own Land Use Department describes this directly -- "the County Zoning Ordinance only covers a specific area of land within 2 miles of the City of Burlington." Notably, the ordinance does not extend a similar buffer around West Burlington, Danville, Mediapolis, or any of the county's other incorporated communities; the two-mile ring is specific to Burlington.

Practically, this means a property's distance and direction from Burlington's city limits -- not from any other town, and not a simple "how rural does this feel" judgment -- determines whether the county's zoning districts, use restrictions, and permit requirements apply at all. If your parcel is within two miles of Burlington, a Zoning Permit is required for almost all new construction and development projects and must be submitted before construction begins; you'll also need to identify which zoning district the parcel falls in (agricultural, residential, or another district under the ordinance) since permitted and conditional uses vary by district. If your parcel falls outside that two-mile ring, county zoning simply doesn't apply to it as a matter of ordinance jurisdiction.

What "no zoning district" means in practice for a buyer

Land outside the two-mile ring not being zoned doesn't mean it's unregulated in every sense -- the county's floodplain, subdivision, building-code, environmental health (septic/well), and road-access rules still apply regardless of zoning status, and any land within an incorporated city's own limits is governed by that city's zoning instead. What it does mean is that the specific use-district restrictions a zoning ordinance normally provides -- limits on commercial uses next to a residence, setback and lot-coverage rules tied to a particular district, conditional-use review for things like a livestock operation or a home business -- generally don't apply outside the ring. That cuts both ways: you have more latitude for your own plans, and a neighbor has more latitude too. Before buying land you're expecting to use in a way that would normally need a conditional use permit or variance elsewhere (a home-based business, additional dwelling units, certain agricultural operations), confirm with the Land Use Department whether your parcel is inside or outside the zoning ring, since the answer changes what oversight -- and what protection from surrounding land uses -- you should expect.

The subdivision picture is different and worth keeping straight: the county's Subdivision Ordinance (No. 29) applies to divisions of unincorporated land countywide, independent of the zoning ring, aside from exemptions the ordinance itself lists (such as certain agricultural splits). A preliminary plat goes to the Land Use Administrator for review, with the Zoning Commission weighing in where the zoning ordinance also applies, before the Board of Supervisors takes final action; a final plat must be prepared by a registered land surveyor consistent with Iowa Code Chapters 354 and 355 and is recorded by the County Recorder. Where an incorporated city has adopted its own ordinance claiming extraterritorial review authority within two miles of its limits -- a separate, state-law mechanism available to any Iowa city -- a plat in that overlap area needs approval from both the county and the city. Confirm with the Land Use Department, staffed by the Southeast Iowa Regional Planning Commission (SEIRPC) at (319) 753-4313, whether a specific parcel falls within any city's extraterritorial review area before assuming a county-only subdivision process applies.

For any specific parcel, get a written zoning determination from the Land Use Department before closing -- ask explicitly whether the parcel is within the two-mile Burlington ring, and if so, which zoning district applies and what conditional uses or permits it would need. Because this two-tier structure is unusual even within Iowa, don't rely on a real estate listing's description of zoning, an online parcel viewer's default assumption, or a neighboring county's zoning norms to answer this question for a Des Moines County parcel.