Chairman Loren Young with Governor signing Richland County's land use relief bill

Richland County asked the Montana Association of Counties to prepare a bill for the 2019 Montana Legislature to provide specific relief from land use regulation.

The bill gives county commissioners discretion to lift restrictive agricultural covenants from land that is leaving agricultural use but is going into a public use.

​A law like this recently would have saved our rural electric cooperative over $80,000 in useless and time-consuming subdivision regulation studies. Since the cooperative will be using the land for an electrical substation to serve the residents of our county, there really was no reason for an expensive study of drinking water and sewer regulations. With this law, when local county commissioners can see that the regulations are useless, expensive, and a waste of time, they will be able to lift the restrictions.

In the photograph above, standing on the right is Loren H. Young, Chairman of the Board of County Commissioners, at the bill signing with the Governor of the State of Montana.