Request By:
Mr. Foster L. Haunz
Attorney at Law
Kentucky Home Life Building
Louisville, Kentucky 40202
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
KRS 67.380 and 67.390 permit fiscal courts to regulate the construction, repair and maintenance of buildings "except that buildings for agricultural purposes located upon premises that are used solely for agricultural purposes are exempt from such regulations. " (Emphasis added). (Emphasis added).
A building once used for human occupany located on a 100-acre farm has for several years been used as a storage shed and barn in connection with a bona fide livestock and farming operation, and for no other purpose.
You ask: Is the described building exempt from fiscal court regulation?
The court's interpretation of the scope of the two statutes is that they authorize fiscal court regulation of building construction from the standpoint of public safety and health in a limited or narrow sense, and not in the interest of the public good generally. In other words the two statutes are aimed at establishing a building code law designed to relate to specific health hazards. They are not zoning statutes. American Sign Corporation v. Fowler, Ky., 276 S.W.2d 651 (1955) 654. The statutes stress the structural aspect of buildings rather than the use of the buildings [zoning mainly regulates use].
The statutes do not define agricultural purposes. However, case decisions reflect that the term "agricultural pursuit" includes every process and step taken and necessary to the completion of a finished farm product." Robinson v. Lytle, 276 Ky. 397, 124 S.W.2d 78 (1939) 79. The word "agriculture" is defined in Websters New Collegiate Dictionary, page 24, as the "science or act of cultivating the soil, producing crops, and raising livestock and in varying degrees the preparation of these products for man's use and their disposal (as by marketing)."
From the facts given, it is our opinion that the building in question, which is solely used as a storage shed and barn in connection with a livestock and farming operation, is exempt from fiscal court regulation. Here we are assuming that the 100-acre tract is used solely for agricultural purposes as defined above.