Buying Land in Andrew County, Missouri

No county zoning: what that means, and where it doesn’t apply

Andrew County has not adopted countywide zoning ordinances -- a fact stated directly on the county government’s own website. As in most rural Missouri counties, that means unincorporated land in Andrew County is not subject to a county zoning map, a use table, or a county-level rezoning or conditional-use process. For a buyer, this generally means more flexibility on rural land than a zoned Iowa or Kansas county of comparable size would offer.

That flexibility ends at city limits. Savannah, the county seat and largest city, maintains its own Planning and Zoning Commission and a municipal zoning code, which applies within Savannah’s corporate limits and to land it later annexes. Smaller incorporated towns in the county may or may not have their own zoning; confirm directly with any town whose limits border a parcel you’re evaluating, and confirm separately with the Andrew County Commission whether any narrower county ordinance (subdivision, road-access, or floodplain-specific) applies to the unincorporated land itself.

Septic and wells: local health department, statewide well rules

The Andrew County Health Department, established in 1975 and based in Savannah, lists onsite sewage system services and water-quality testing directly among its programs -- this is the office to contact for a septic (OWTS) permit or inspection on a specific parcel. As in the rest of Missouri, well construction is governed at the state level, not by a county permit office: Missouri law (RSMo 256.600-256.640) allows a landowner to install their own well without a permit, while any contractor performing well or pump work must hold a Missouri DNR well and pump installation contractor permit. There is no separate Andrew County well-permitting desk -- DNR’s statewide licensing and construction-standard rules apply the same way here as everywhere else in the state.

The 102 River at Rosendale: a real, recent, well-documented flood

In May 2026, heavy rainfall drove the 102 River toward its flood of record at the Rosendale gauge, in southern Andrew County near the Buchanan County line. A National Weather Service flood warning issued May 17, 2026 initially forecast a crest near 19 feet, then was revised upward to 21.8 feet as rain continued, with the river reported measured above 25 feet at points during the event. At 19 feet, Missouri Route 48 was already underwater on both the east and west sides of Rosendale, cutting the town off from through traffic; NWS impact statements for the gauge warned that around 23-24 feet, roughly 80% of homes and businesses in the town of Rosendale would flood. Flooding also reportedly reached into fields outside town and affected the neighboring town of Maryville (in Nodaway County) and its Happy Hollow Park.

This is a specific, dated, and independently reported event rather than a generic statement about floodplain risk -- and it’s a useful signal about how this stretch of the 102 River behaves in a significant rain event. If you’re evaluating land near Rosendale, the 102 River corridor, or the Andrew-Buchanan county line generally, pull the current FEMA Flood Insurance Rate Map for the specific parcel, and ask the county and/or a local insurance agent directly what this May 2026 event did to flood-zone designations, insurance premiums, or any local floodplain permitting requirements in the area -- that level of post-event detail was not independently verifiable during this research pass and should be confirmed before you treat a nearby parcel’s flood exposure as settled.

A largely agricultural county on the edge of the St. Joseph metro

Andrew County was organized in January 1841 out of the Platte Purchase, and its early economy was built on Missouri River steamboat trade that let farmers ship goods to St. Louis and Kansas City markets. Today the county remains predominantly agricultural, with row-crop farming (corn and soybeans) and livestock production as the backbone of the local economy, while its southern edge borders the St. Joseph metropolitan area (Buchanan County) -- a small portion of the city of St. Joseph itself even extends north into Andrew County. That proximity to a metro area of over 100,000 people is worth factoring into how you think about a specific parcel’s longer-term development pressure versus a more purely rural county.