Back to Basics
Is It Horse-Friendly? Understanding
Ordinances for Horse Properties
By David Kreager
A few years ago, Marisa had finally saved enough for
a down payment on her dream horse property. It only
took her a few weeks to find what she was looking for -
a reasonably sized home on 10 acres, with an outbuild-
ing already on the property that would be pretty easy
to convert to a 2-stall horse barn.
However, the area Marisa wanted to use as a grazing
pasture wasn’t fenced yet, so she invested $6,000 to
fence in 4 acres for a pasture.
Three months after getting her two horses and
herself settled, she received a notice from her township
that her brand-new fence needed to be removed be-
cause it violated one of the townships’ ordinances. The
ordinance stated that fences needed to be “set back” at
least 100 feet from the road. Since her new fence was
only 50 feet from the road, it had to be taken out.
Luckily for Marisa, she had enough acreage that she
could take down that side of the fence, move it back
and still have a large enough pasture area. Unluckily
for Marisa, it would cost her another $2,000 to have
the offending fence line moved back 50 feet and re-
done. And because that extra money wasn’t in her bud-
get after purchasing the home and paying for the first
fence, she had to move her horses back into boarding
for another 3 months until she could afford to redo the
open side of the fence.
The Importance of Understanding Zoning Ordi-
nances
Marisa could have saved herself the stress, hassle,
time, $2,000, plus boarding fees, if she had done some
homework in advance. Having to make unplanned
changes to your property - or worse yet, finding out
that you can’t use it the way you want at all! - is expen-
sive.
When you’re starting to look at properties, you’ll
want to have a pretty good idea of what you want now,
as well as what you may want to grow into in the fu-
ture. You’ll also want to understand the current zoning
of the property, so you know what’s allowed, or if a
Special Use Permit (SUP) is required for your intended
use, and what the process is to acquire that permit. If
10 • Walking On
the zoning’s not right, or the process to acquire a SUP
too cumbersome, it may be easiest to just find a differ-
ent property.
If you’re buying a property with the intention of
keeping horses, take the time to find the answers to the
questions below before you finalize any deal:
What is the property zoned, right now?
The easiest type of zoning to work with is the cur-
rent zoning. Codes will vary between municipalities,
townships and cities, but typically you’ll want to find
a property that is zoned ‘Agricultural’ or ‘Agricultural/
Residential’. Be aware that if you plan to run some sort
of equestrian business in the future (horse boarding,
riding lessons, horse training, etc.), you may actually
need a property that is zoned ‘Commercial’.