Facts
Ulrich Mäder operates a herb nursery with around 30 employees and a cultivation area of approximately 9.2 hectares in the agricultural zone of Boppelsen. To ensure year-round production, herbs from Tenerife and South Africa are also imported, which are packaged on the nursery premises and then delivered to customers from there.
Mäder applied for a permit to build a two-story operational building with a footprint of 30 x 15 m and a total usable area of 1,300 m2. In addition to the preparation room, this building is to house office, sanitary and refrigeration rooms, as well as storage and transshipment areas.
The Administrative Court of the Canton of Zurich had affirmed the conformity with the zoning regulations of the construction projects as a whole, as it considered the processing of foreign herbs on the nursery premises to the extent planned to be permissible.
Considerations
The Federal Supreme Court upheld the appeal and overturned the decision of the Administrative Court, insofar as the conformity with the zoning regulations of the operational building was established.
According to the case law of the Federal Supreme Court, only those buildings in the agricultural zone are in conformity with the zoning regulations that are objectively necessary for the proper cultivation of the land at the intended location and are not oversized. Furthermore, no overriding public interests may speak against their construction.
The Federal Supreme Court concluded that the planned preparation room in the operational building, in which not only the self-grown but also imported herbs are to be packaged…