Ohio

Buying Land in Licking County, Ohio

Seat Newark, just east of Columbus. Licking County has no county zoning code at all -- every one of its roughly 25 townships either zones itself or doesn't -- and it's also home to the single largest private land-use story in modern Ohio history: the Intel Ohio One semiconductor campus, built on annexed and rezoned Jersey Township farmland.

No County Zoning -- It Is Entirely a Township-by-Township Question

Case-by-case / verify locally

Licking County has not adopted rural zoning under ORC Chapter 303. Zoning is handled township by township under Chapter 519, and roughly six of the county's townships have no zoning resolution at all. Confirm your specific township's status before assuming anything about use, setbacks, or lot requirements.

Intel's Ohio One Megaproject Is Reshaping Land Values and Growth Countywide

Case-by-case / verify locally

A roughly $28 billion Intel chip fab under construction on annexed Jersey Township land near Johnstown is driving housing demand, road and utility strain, and speculative land interest across the county. See our dedicated zoning page for how the annexation and rezoning actually happened.

Septic Runs Through One County Health Department

Generally favorable

The Licking County Health Department permits and inspects septic systems countywide -- roughly 30,000 systems in the county, by the department's own estimate.

Zoning: no county code -- every township is its own case

Unlike many neighboring Ohio counties, Licking County has never adopted county-wide rural zoning under ORC Chapter 303. Instead, zoning here is purely a matter of individual townships choosing (or not choosing) to adopt their own resolution under ORC Chapter 519. Reporting on the county's own zoning structure puts the current split at roughly 19 of the county's 25 townships carrying an adopted zoning resolution and about 6 with none at all -- meaning a parcel's zoning status, and even whether zoning exists at all, depends entirely on which specific township it sits in.

The Licking County Planning Commission plays a real but limited role: proposed rezonings and zoning-map changes go to the township first, and the commission's review and recommendation to the township's zoning commission is explicitly advisory rather than binding. The township zoning commission and trustees hold the actual decision-making authority. For a buyer, that means the county's own planning staff are a useful resource for maps and process questions, but the township zoning office (where one exists) is the actual authority to confirm current district, permitted uses, and any pending rezoning near a specific parcel -- especially important in and around the unzoned townships, where county subdivision regulations may still apply even without a zoning code.

The Intel megaproject: how ~900 acres of Jersey Township farmland became Ohio One

Licking County is now home to the largest single private capital investment in Ohio history and one of the largest semiconductor projects in the world. Intel announced on January 21, 2022 that it had chosen a site in the New Albany International Business Park -- the Licking County portion of which sits in what was Jersey Township -- for a $20 billion, two-fab investment; Intel increased that commitment to $28 billion in March 2024, and has described the full mega-site as capable of eventually hosting up to eight fabs. Reaching that site required a specific, documented legal mechanism: a 1,689-acre annexation petition, filed by 117 property owners, that moved land out of unincorporated Jersey Township and into the City of New Albany (whose main jurisdiction sits across the line in Franklin County). New Albany's City Council then rezoned roughly 900 acres of that annexed land from Agricultural to a newly created Technology Manufacturing District -- meaning the Intel campus itself is governed by the city's own zoning code, not Jersey Township's or Licking County's. Jersey Township and New Albany also signed a 50-year cooperative annexation agreement addressing infrastructure and revenue sharing on the annexed land.

Construction has moved on a multi-year timeline typical of megaproject-scale fabs: as of the most recent construction update found in this research pass, crews had logged more than 6.4 million work hours, poured over 200,000 cubic yards of concrete, and completed underground utility trenching, with Intel targeting completion of the first module (Mod 1) around 2030 and the start of operations in the 2030-2031 window -- later than Intel's original schedule, reflecting well-publicized construction delays. At full employment, Intel has cited roughly 3,000 of its own jobs plus roughly 7,000 construction jobs at peak, with additional jobs expected among suppliers locating nearby; some coverage has floated a total site investment as high as $100 billion over the next decade if fully built out, though that figure describes a long-run potential rather than a committed dollar amount.

What the Intel project means for land near it -- and countywide

The ripple effects reach well beyond the annexed site itself. Johnstown, a few miles north of the Intel campus, crossed 5,000 residents in the 2020 census and formally became a city as a direct result of growth tied to the project; nearby Etna Township and other communities along the SR-310/I-70 corridor have seen a comparable surge in housing demand, land speculation, and construction activity. Local economic-development groups have described housing supply -- especially multi-family housing -- as a genuine strain on the county, and community planning efforts have specifically focused on managing growth in the townships closest to the site. A buyer considering land anywhere in the northern half of Licking County should treat proximity to the Intel corridor as a real driver of both opportunity (rising land values, new infrastructure investment) and risk (speculative pricing, construction traffic, utility capacity questions, and zoning or annexation activity that can move quickly). See our dedicated zoning standalone for Licking County for the full annexation and rezoning mechanics and what to watch for.

Outside the immediate Intel corridor, Licking County remains a large, largely rural county with substantial farmland, and the same township-by-township zoning pattern described above governs the rest of the county just as it does the land near New Albany -- confirm zoning status directly rather than assuming it either exists or doesn't.

Septic and other departments to know

For septic and well permitting, the Licking County Health Department handles the county's estimated 30,000 household sewage treatment systems directly -- a permit to install or alter a system is required before installation, a pre-backfill inspection is mandatory, and the department performs a 12-month follow-up inspection on new installations plus ongoing operation-and-maintenance inspections (annually for discharging/drip-irrigation systems, every five years for standard soil-absorption systems).

The Licking County Auditor and Recorder hold parcel, deed, and easement records for any property in the county, and the Licking County Planning Commission (part of the same office that handles the advisory zoning review described above) is the right first call for GIS mapping, subdivision regulations, and general zoning-jurisdiction questions before you reach out to a specific township.

What we could and couldn't confirm

Licking County's lack of county-wide Ch. 303 zoning and its township-by-township Ch. 519 pattern (roughly 19 of 25 townships zoned) are drawn from the county's own posted Township & Zoning Info page description of the review process, though one other source cited a slightly different 26-township/20-zoned count -- treat the exact current numbers as approximate. The Intel annexation acreage (1,689 acres annexed, roughly 900-1,000 acres directly tied to the fab site), the rezoning to a Technology Manufacturing District, and the 2022/2024 investment figures ($20B then $28B) are corroborated across Columbus Dispatch, 10TV, and AOL/Yahoo-syndicated local reporting. Construction-progress figures (work hours, concrete poured, revised 2030/2031 timeline) come from Intel's own newsroom content as surfaced through search indexing; direct WebFetch to newsroom.intel.com was blocked by network egress rules in this research pass, so those figures should be reconfirmed against Intel's current public statements before being treated as up to the minute. Johnstown's incorporation and the county-wide housing-strain narrative are corroborated across Spectrum News 1, Yahoo-syndicated reporting, and The Reporting Project, a Licking County-focused nonprofit newsroom. Direct WebFetch to lickingcounty.gov and lickingcohealth.org was not attempted.

Verify directly with: the Licking County Planning Commission for current township-by-township zoning status, the relevant township trustees near the Intel corridor for local land-use and infrastructure planning, Intel's own newsroom or New Albany's economic development office for the fab's current construction timeline, and the Licking County Health Department for septic and well permitting

Who to Call Before Buying Land in Licking County

Direct WebFetch access to lickingcounty.gov and lickingcohealth.org was not attempted in this research pass, and one source gave a slightly different zoned/unzoned township count (26 townships, 20 zoned) than the more commonly cited 25/19 split used above -- confirm the current count and your specific township's zoning status directly.

Planning & Zoning