Union County, NC
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Union County Farm Affidavit Process
The North Carolina General Statutes provide exemptions for certain types of uses and buildings if they qualify as a bona fide farm. These exemptions apply to the provisions of the Union County Development Ordinance and the NC Building Code.
Regardless of bona fide farm status and associated exemptions, a property is subject to all applicable North Carolina Public Health Laws and Rules as found in the North Carolina General Statutes and North Carolina Administrative Code.
The Union County Planning Department in conjunction with Building Code Enforcement and Environmental Health created a process to review farm exemption requests:
Step 1 | Customer stops in at one of the aforementioned departments to discuss their plans.
Step 2 | If staff or the applicant thinks that their project may be exempt from certain rules because they are a farm, then the applicant is given the Farm Use/Structure Affidavit.
Step 3 | Applicant completes all three sections of the affidavit and provides any required documentation. A site plan showing all existing and proposed structures along with the locations of existing septic systems and wells must be submitted.
Incomplete submittals will not be processed. Please use the Plot Plan for Farm/Structure Use for this step.
Step 4 | Applicant brings in or uploads the form and supplemental documents to the online permitting/project review system (Evolve).
Step 5 | The review is sent to Planning, Environmental Health and Building Code to review. The reviews are done simultaneously.
Step 6 | Once all reviews are complete the applicant is emailed a letter explaining whether the affidavit was approved or whether departments had comments, questions or disapproved.
Step 7 | If any of the departments had comments or questions a resubmittal will be required to address the comments or questions.
Step 8 | Multiple scenarios could happen when the affidavit review is complete. Please review below.