Zoning Clearance in Unincorporated Cache County, Utah

Cache County Development Services (Planning & Zoning) requires a Zoning Clearance before most building permit applications can be submitted. County Code Title 17 (adopted by Ordinance No. 2013-02) defines a Zoning Clearance as 'an acknowledgment, provided by the zoning administrator, or designee, identifying that the proposed use, building, structure, or facility complies to the requirements of this Title.' This is a Planning & Zoning-level land-use compliance review, separate from and required before the Building Division's building permit review — the county's own Zoning Clearance Application form states directly: 'Do not submit for a building permit until a zoning clearance has been approved and received.' The form is oriented primarily toward proposed new/modified structures (site plan, floor plan, elevations, dimensions), but its own acknowledgment text also ties any change in use to this same process: 'Any changes in type of structure or placement will require a new zoning clearance.' This file's existing tipsAndGotchas already flagged the Zoning Clearance's existence at a high level; this entry adds its fee, document, and timeline detail. FEE DISCREPANCY RESOLVED 2026-07-20: re-chased the $75/$30 (current form) vs. $250/$125/$100/$50 (2024 news report) conflict directly against the county's own fee resolution rather than either the form or the news article alone. Findings: (1) the Zoning Clearance Application form was re-fetched live and still reads 'Fee: Primary - $75' / 'Accessory/Agricultural - $30.' (2) Cache County's official Land Use Fee Schedule PDF (cachecounty.gov/assets/department/devserv/feeschedule/Fee Schedule.pdf, letterhead-stamped 'Resolution 2018-16') was re-fetched and rendered to an image for a line-by-line visual read (its pdftotext output is column-jumbled) — it independently confirms the identical figures: 'Zoning Clearance - Primary Use: $75' / 'Zoning Clearance - Accessory Use: $30.' (3) The original Cache Valley Daily article (Oct 23, 2024) was re-fetched directly and quotes the fee proposal verbatim: 'zoning clearance applications for primary use, accessory use, agriculture use and third review, which are $75, $30, $30 and $0 respectively. The proposed increase would raise the prices for those services to $250, $125, $100 and $50' — confirming $75/$30 as the PRE-increase baseline the article itself cites, with $250/$125/$100/$50 as the proposed new tier presented by Development Services Director Stephen Nelson (one of three proposals he presented, with the smallest-increase option recommended for adoption) at the Oct. 22, 2024 Council meeting. (4) Separately, Cache County's Building Division Fee Schedule PDF (cachecounty.gov/assets/department/devserv/Building fees adopted 2024.pdf) is explicitly stamped 'Adopted on 11/6/2024 as Ord. 2024-18' and its building-fee dollar figures exactly match the Cache Valley Daily article's reported building-fee numbers (e.g. $3,480 for a $350,000 home) — confirming Ord. 2024-18 is real, was adopted, and did raise Building Division fees as reported. However, no analogous 'Land Use fees adopted 2024' document exists anywhere discoverable on cachecounty.gov, and the Land Use/Zoning Fee Schedule PDF that does exist is still stamped with the older 'Resolution 2018-16' and shows the pre-increase $75/$30 figures — meaning Ord. 2024-18's land-use/zoning-clearance fee increase, even though reported as approved in the same Oct. 22, 2024 meeting, was either not carried into the final adopted ordinance text, was adopted but never implemented in the county's published Land Use fee documentation, or was reversed — the Building Division side of the same fee package was clearly implemented and documented, while the Land Use/Zoning side was not. Given TWO independent, currently-live official Cache County documents (the application form and the Land Use Fee Schedule) both agree on $75/$30 as of a direct 2026-07-20 check — nearly two years after the reported Council vote — $75/$30 is treated here as the currently-effective, governing figure. The county code's own 'FEE SCHEDULE' section (hosted on a JavaScript-driven municipalcodeonline.com portal) could not be read directly — its content API returned 'Unauthorized Access' to a non-browser fetch — so a definitive ordinance-text-level confirmation was not obtainable; applicants budgeting a Primary-use Zoning Clearance above $75 should still call Development Services, (435) 755-1640, to rule out an internal fee-schedule update that hasn't reached either public document.

Verified 2026-07-20 · Source