The Brown County Planning and Zoning Office administer the permitting in unincorporated areas of the county. To improve efficiency and better serve the public we have been utilizing permitting software for about a year. This allows citizens to apply on-line for several types of permits and you may also pay for your permit on-line for your convenience. If you want to use this go to our county website http://www.co.brown.mn.us. Go to departments then planning and zoning, the Permitting Application Website is listed towards the top of the page. We will review the information submitted and, if it meets the Zoning Ordinance, approve it in a short time.

Please come in to our office or call us if you have plans to construct a building, septic system or expand your herd. We would like to work with citizens early in the process. Please notify Planning and Zoning so records may be updated if an ownership change occurs on property with livestock. Feedlot registration updates are due once every 4 years, so if you receive one in the mail, please send that back with any updates.

Our office is also administering the Brown County Sanitary Landfill. We are currently in the process of Re-permitting the landfill with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. It will be a process that will allow us to conduct construction of a new cell for garbage, give us the option to add synthetic composite material into the baseliner and final cover in the future. We also need to construct a new leachate sprayfield this summer because construction of the new garbage cell will be in the existing sprayfield.

The Landfill accepts items for recycling such as televisions, computer towers, laptops, and tablets; white goods such as refrigerators, stoves, air conditioners; and also tires for a fee. Fees can be found on the planning and zoning page under Solid Waste/ Landfill and recycling.

Emergency Management is another area we focus on. We work with other jurisdictions and disciplines to coordinate the response to an emergency and ensure that the response is running as safely and efficiently as possible through coordination and allocation of resources (people, items, equipment, etc.). We work hand-in-hand with law enforcement, fire departments, emergency medical services, hospitals, public health, volunteer agencies and private businesses.

We are responsible for updates and revisions to the Emergency Operations Plan (EOP), coordinating various exercises that are used to test the EOP, conduct and provide public education, provide assistance to local jurisdictions and county agencies before, during and after disaster(s) strike, applying for Federal and State grants and more. We work closely with local, state and federal officials and cooperatively with neighbouring counties to better prepare for and respond to incidents ranging from tornadoes and floods to pandemics and foreign animal disease outbreaks.

We also have four county parks: Lake Hanska, Lost Dog and Fox Hunters, Mound Creek and Treml. All are beautiful and offer many amenities to enjoy.