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Rural rezoning pilot draws broad support from counties and strong opposition from land-use advocates

Senate Committee on Housing and Development · February 10, 2026
AI-Generated Content: All content on this page was generated by AI to highlight key points from the meeting. For complete details and context, we recommend watching the full video. so we can fix them.

Summary

SB 15 78 would let qualifying rural counties rezone up to 50 acres outside urban growth boundaries for housing and relax certain ADU rules; county leaders largely supported the opt-in pilot as a local-control tool, while conservation and farm groups warned it risks farmland loss, water impacts, wildfire risk and speculative pressure.

The committee opened a public hearing on SB 15 78, a bill allowing qualifying rural counties to rezone up to 50 acres outside urban growth boundaries for residential development and to expand accessory dwelling unit (ADU) siting and size allowances on farmland parcels that already contain a dwelling.

Sen. Todd Nash introduced the bill and described it as a targeted, county opt-in tool to address acute rural housing shortages; he and his staff recounted specific rural…

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