Where do you fall in new horse rules?
August 18, 2010
FORT COLLINS, Colorado -- Now that the dust has settled in the horse-boarding land use arena, property owners may be scratching their heads and wondering just exactly how the rules work.
Stable owners had been operating since 1988 with little or no enforcement of existing rules. Now, if you have 10 acres, you can board up to four horses as a use by right. Less acreage will earn you one boarded horse per 2.5 acres. And thanks to last-minute amendments, everybody gets to teach up to 15 lessons per week. Failure to comply means you are operating without county approval, and are fair game for disgruntled neighbors with complaints.
After that, the situation gets complicated, and requires varying levels of county review, but generally, the bigger your property, the more you can do. One thing has not changed: Whether you own or board horses, you can never have more than one horse per half acre.
Check out BusinessWeek online's property rights commentary: Mortgages lost in the Cloud