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RENDERED: APRIL 21, 2011 TO BE PUBLISHED
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2009-SC-000152-DG

PAUL NASH, ET AL. APPELLANTS
ON REVIEW FROMCOURT OF APPEALS
V. CASE NOS. 2007-CA-000994-MR &2007-CA-001065-MR CAMPBELL CIRCUIT COURT NOS. 05-CI-00886 8s 05-CI-01254
CAMPBELL COUNTY FISCAL COURT, APPELAEES ET AL.
OPINION OFTHE COURT BY JUSTICE SCHRODER

AFFIRMING IN PART, REVERSING IN PART
AND REMANDING

The appeals in the Court ofAppeals were consolidated and an opinion was issued which revisits the "agricultural supremacy clause," the exemption of certain agricultural land from zoning and subdivision regulations under Chapter 100 of the Kentucky Revised Statutes. We accepted discretionary review to give some guidance in applying the agricultural exemption to both the use and the division of land.
I . INTRODUCTION
Paul and Pat Nash (Nash) own about twenty-eight acres in Campbell County. Clifford and Toby Torline (Torline) own about thirty-five acres in Campbell County. Both Nash and Torline desired to divide their parcels into Torline see the results as mini-farms, while the County sees residential
subdivisions with large lots. The County Clerk is caught in the middle and seeks guidance as to whether or not he should accept the deeds for recording. The County has taken a stand with two ordinances' designed to prohibit any division until the property owners prove to the Planning Commission that the divisions were for agricultural purposes. Nash and Torline take exception to having the burden placed on them, countering that the County must prove the divisions were not exempt from subdivision regulations . The trial court agreed with Nash and Torline and held the ordinances in question violated the
agricultural supremacy clause and were therefore unconstitutional. The Court
ofAppeals reversed and we accepted discretionary review.
II . FACTS
A. THE NASH PROPERTY
Paul and Pat Nash own about twenty-eight acres at 4398 Indian Trace Road in Alexandria, Campbell County, Kentucky. Indian Trace Road is an "old roadbed" that borders the westerly property line of the Nash property. 2 Public maintenance of Indian Trace Road stops before reaching the Nash property. Access to the Nash property is by what is locally known as Beck Road. Beck Road is an old road or driveway that begins somewhere on the "old roadbed" of
0-18-04 8s 0-20-04. 2 Per the attached deeds and plats in the record .
continues through the Nash property to a house. At the end of the pavement, by the house, begins a gravel drive that continues to the proposed farms in Tract 2 and Tract 3. In August of 2003, the Nashes had their property surveyed and prepared five deeds of five or more acres each. Only Tract l, from which the four new tracts were divided, has frontage on the "abandoned"4 old Indian Trace Road or Beck Road. With the proposed agricultural divisions, access to all five tracts was to be by way of a twenty foot wide easement for ingress and egress. The easement begins at the end of Beck Road and the beginning of the driveway, and continues. over the driveway up to the house where the pavement stops, and then continues along the gravel driveway to proposed Tract 2 and Tract 3 .
B. THE TORLINE PROPERTY
Clifford and Toby Torline own a parcel of about thirty-five acres in Campbell County, Kentucky. The Torline property has no road frontage on a public street but is accessed by a driveway on an easement over a neighboring property. The Torlines also desire to divide their property into five tracts of five or more acres each for agricultural purposes. Access to each of the five tracts
3 In a related action involving Nash and Beck Road (92-CI-01299), the CampbellCircuit Court ruled in an Order entered June 9, 1994, that Beck Road was not a "county road" but was a "public road" of sufficient width to access the Nash property, and followed the old roadbed from Indian Trace Road to the driveway of Nash. The Master Commissioner's Report which was adopted by the Circuit Court also found that "most of Beck Road had been abandoned from nonuse by the general public."
4 Per the Master Commissioner's report which was adopted by the court in 92-CI

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Kentucky Law