Buying Land in Adams County, Pennsylvania

Zoning: a county ordinance that covers just two townships, plus a contracted borough

Adams County has adopted its own zoning ordinance under the Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code, but it is not countywide in effect. Per the county's own Office of Planning and Development, the county ordinance is directly applied and administered in only two municipalities: Germany Township and Menallen Township. Separately, the county planning office is contracted to serve as the zoning officer for East Berlin Borough, which has adopted its own borough-specific ordinance that the county staff administers on the borough's behalf rather than the county's own countywide code. Every other municipality in Adams County -- dozens of townships and boroughs, including the area immediately around Gettysburg itself -- has adopted and independently administers its own separate zoning ordinance.

Practically, this means the phrase "Adams County zoning" is only literally accurate for a parcel in Germany Township, Menallen Township, or (functionally) East Berlin Borough. For land anywhere else in the county, the relevant zoning ordinance, zoning map, and zoning officer belong to that specific township or borough, not the county -- and, consistent with Pennsylvania's statewide pattern of optional zoning adoption, it's worth directly confirming whether a given rural township has adopted any zoning ordinance at all rather than assuming one exists. Some townships have separately built in Municipal Planning Code § 604(3) agricultural-zoning provisions aimed specifically at protecting prime farmland soils from incompatible development -- another reason to pull the specific township's ordinance rather than relying on a countywide assumption.

Farmland preservation: a real program, and a reason to check for a recorded easement

Adams County is fruit-belt and dairy country on the western edge of the Philadelphia-to-Harrisburg growth corridor, and the county runs an active Agricultural Land Preservation Program that purchases agricultural conservation easements from willing farm owners, with an application cycle that opens every other spring in even-numbered years. The Land Conservancy of Adams County offers a separate, complementary conservation-easement path outside the county program. For a buyer, the practical upshot cuts both ways: it signals a county government actively working to keep farmland in production and out of subdivision pressure, but it also means a specific farm parcel you're evaluating may already carry a recorded conservation easement restricting future development, subdivision, or non-agricultural use permanently -- something to check for at the Recorder of Deeds before assuming a large open parcel is a blank slate for building or subdividing.

Septic: no county health department, so it runs through local SEOs

Adams County is not among the handful of Pennsylvania counties that operate their own county health department, so onlot sewage disposal (septic) permitting in Adams County follows the state's default Act 537 structure: a DEP-certified Sewage Enforcement Officer, employed or contracted by the specific township or a multi-municipal arrangement, personally conducts or oversees soil testing and perc testing on a given parcel and decides whether to issue the permit. Several townships (Franklin and Liberty Townships among them) publish their own onlot sewage management program pages describing local requirements, which is a useful first stop, but the actual testing schedule, fee, and site-specific decision rests with whichever certified SEO serves that municipality -- confirm directly with the township office before assuming a specific timeline or cost.

Records, GIS, and other departments to know

The Adams County Recorder of Deeds (111-117 Baltimore Street, Suite 103, Gettysburg; 717-337-9835) holds recorded deeds, mortgages, easements (including any agricultural conservation easement), and plats -- the first stop for confirming title history and any existing restrictions on a specific parcel. Tax Services (717-337-9837) and the county's Tax Mapping office handle property assessment and parcel maps, and the county's GIS Hub and Public Parcel Viewer provide online parcel boundary and aerial-imagery lookups. Because zoning authority is split between the county and dozens of individual municipalities here, cross-checking a parcel's specific township or borough through GIS before contacting a zoning office is a genuinely useful first step.