Buying Land in Tama County, Iowa

Zoning, subdivision, and floodplain: one department, in place since 1998

Unincorporated Tama County is governed by a zoning ordinance the county adopted in 1998, administered by the county's Zoning Department. Before starting construction, landowners need a Zoning Certificate, and the Zoning Office can tell you whether a Building Permit or Zoning Certificate applies to a specific project. The Zoning Commission reviews and recommends action on subdivision plats, land use policy amendments, and rezoning requests before they reach the Board of Supervisors, while the Board of Adjustment has separate authority to grant variances and conditional use permits and to hear appeals of the Zoning Administrator's decisions.

The same Zoning Department also administers floodplain management for the county, maintaining the current Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRM) used to determine a parcel's flood-hazard status; FIRMs can also be viewed at the Zoning Office or pulled directly from the FEMA Map Service Center. The Iowa River runs through Tama County by way of Tama, Toledo, and Chelsea, and the broader Iowa River basin saw record or near-record flooding during the Iowa flood of 2008 -- an exceptionally wet late-May-to-mid-June period that produced a statewide average of over 9 inches of rain against a normal of roughly 2.45 inches, with peak discharges at some Iowa River gauges the largest on record. Pull the current FIRM for any parcel near the river before assuming distance from the bank settles the flood-risk question, and confirm floodplain permit requirements directly with the Zoning Department.

Wells and septic: soil-analysis-based permitting through the Sanitarian Department

Septic system permits and inspections in Tama County run through the county's Sanitarian Department, housed within Tama County Public Health and Home Care. A soil analysis is required as part of the septic permit process to determine system type and sizing, consistent with Iowa DNR's statewide private sewage disposal standard. The department also handles well water testing and radon testing, and participates in the state's Grants-to-Counties groundwater protection program, which can help fund well and cistern closures and well rehabilitation. Reach the Sanitarian Department at (641) 484-4788, or contact the Environmental Health line directly at (641) 481-3550 for septic and well questions specifically.

The Meskwaki Settlement: purchased land in federal trust, not a treaty reservation

The most genuinely distinctive fact about Tama County is the Meskwaki Settlement, home to the federally recognized Sac and Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa (the Meskwaki Nation) -- the only tribe headquartered in Iowa. Unlike most tribal land nationally, the settlement was never set aside from the public domain as a reservation; the Meskwaki pooled their own money to purchase 80 acres from a local farmer in 1857 after removal, and their holdings (now exceeding 8,100 acres across Tama, Marshall, and Palo Alto counties, mostly concentrated west of Tama) were placed into federal trust in 1896. Criminal jurisdiction on the settlement has shifted more than once in living memory: a 1948 federal law gave Iowa jurisdiction over crimes involving Indians there, Congress repealed that law in December 2018 (Public Law 115-301), and a 2019 Iowa Supreme Court decision confirmed the state retained jurisdiction over non-Indians independent of that repeal. As recently as September 2025, the State of Iowa and the Meskwaki Nation signed a new agreement clarifying that certified officers from each side can pursue and arrest suspects who cross the settlement boundary -- addressing real confusion (including dismissed DUI cases) that had built up since 2018. This is a live, evolving jurisdictional relationship, not settled history, and it's covered in full on our dedicated Tama County tribal-trust-land-status page rather than here.