153A-342. Districts; zoning less than entire jurisdiction.

(a) A county may divide its territorial jurisdiction into districts of any number, shape, and area that it may consider best suited to carry out the purposes of this Part. Within these districts a county may regulate and restrict the erection, construction, reconstruction, alteration, repair, or use of buildings, structures, or land. Such districts may include, but shall not be limited to, general use districts, in which a variety of uses are permissible in accordance with general standards; overlay districts, in which additional requirements are imposed on certain properties within one or more underlying general or special use districts; special use districts or conditional use districts, in which uses are permitted only upon the issuance of a special use permit or a conditional use permit and conditional zoning districts, in which site plans and individualized development conditions are imposed.

(b) Property may be placed in a special use district, conditional use district, or conditional district only in response to a petition by the owners of all the property to be included. Specific conditions applicable to the districts may be proposed by the petitioner or the county or its agencies, but only those conditions mutually approved by the county and the petitioner may be incorporated into the zoning regulations or permit requirements. Conditions and site-specific standards imposed in a conditional district shall be limited to those that address the conformance of the development and use of the site to county ordinances and an officially adopted comprehensive or other plan and those that address the impacts reasonably expected to be generated by the development or use of the site.

A statement analyzing the reasonableness of the proposed rezoning shall be prepared for each petition for a rezoning to a special or conditional use district, or a conditional district, or other small-scale rezoning.

(c) Except as authorized by the foregoing, all regulations shall be uniform for each class or kind of building throughout each district, but the regulations in one district may differ from those in other districts.

(d) A county may determine that the public interest does not require that the entire territorial jurisdiction of the county be zoned and may designate one or more portions of that jurisdiction as a zoning area or areas. A zoning area must originally contain at least 640 acres and at least 10 separate tracts of land in separate ownership and may thereafter be expanded by the addition of any amount of territory. A zoning area may be regulated in the same manner as if the entire county were zoned, and the remainder of the county need not be regulated.