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Caroline County adopts changes to family-division rules, adds aunts and uncles and ownership hold periods
Summary
The Board adopted S01-2025, amending the county subdivision ordinance to tighten family-division rules: a five-year ownership minimum before eligibility, a 10-year holding requirement for parcels received by family-division, and a prohibition on further dividing such parcels. The board chose to include aunts and uncles in the "immediate family" definition.
Caroline Countys Board of Supervisors voted May 12 to adopt S01-2025, a revision to the county subdivision ordinance governing family divisions.
County staff summarized the key changes under the adopted amendment: a five-year ownership period before a property owner may qualify to create a family-division parcel; a requirement that parcels created through the family-division process be held by the recipient for 10 years; a prohibition on further subdividing parcels created under the family-division method; and revised minimum lot-size rules that eliminate the prior option of creating a two-acre or half-the-lot parcel where that conflicted with district minimums.
Board members debated whether to include extended family in the immediate-family definition. The board voted to expand the definition to include aunts and uncles (but did not add nieces and nephews) while keeping safeguards designed to prevent perceived abuses of the family-division process.
The ordinance was adopted as amended by the board.
What happens next: Planning staff will publish the ordinance changes and update application materials; enforcement will follow the new ownership and holding-period requirements.
The change aims to preserve agricultural and rural lot sizes while allowing limited family transfers under stricter conditions.
