Doubling the acreage on a farmland listing near Centre Hall does not double what you're allowed to build on it. It multiplies through a formula with hard steps, and one of those steps sits at exactly 200 acres. A buyer comparing two tracts, one at 199 acres and one at 201 acres, might assume they're looking at a rounding difference. Under Potter Township's zoning, they're looking at two different legal categories.
Centre Hall Borough sits inside Potter Township, and most of the acreage listings that show up when you search for land around the borough are governed by the township's agricultural district rather than the borough's own zoning. That distinction matters more than the acreage number itself, because the township doesn't treat building rights as a straight line where more land simply means more house. It treats them as a bracket system, and a separate state farmland law layers another set of rules on top that has nothing to do with buildability at all. Sorting out which rule applies to which question is the actual work of buying land here, not the acreage total on the flyer.
The Bracket Buyers Don't See on the Listing Sheet
Potter Township's zoning ordinance sets dwelling density in the agricultural district on a tiered scale. Two thresholds are worth knowing before you go shopping for acreage near Centre Hall.
| Tract size | Dwelling units allowed |
|---|---|
| More than 150 acres, less than 200 acres | Three single-family units, total |
| More than 200 acres | One unit per 50 acres |
Notice what happens at the edges of that table. A 199-acre farm is capped at three houses no matter how close it gets to 200. Cross the line to 200-plus acres and the math resets to a per-50-acre ratio instead of a flat cap. That's not a smooth curve, it's a cliff, and it sits at a number that a lot of century-old Penns Valley farm tracts happen to hover around. If a listing agent tells you a parcel is "almost 200 acres," the honest follow-up question is which side of that line the surveyed acreage actually falls on, because the answer changes what the land is worth to a buyer who cares about future building rights, not just current farmhouse and outbuildings.
The Family Farmhouse Exception That Runs on a Different Clock
Standalone mobile homes aren't generally permitted in Potter Township's agricultural district. But the same ordinance carves out an exception: on any working farm larger than 50 acres, the township allows up to two independent mobile homes as accessory dwellings, typically for family members or farm employees.
This exception runs on its own track, separate from the density bracket above it. A 60-acre farm capped at one principal dwelling under the base formula could still house a second and third generation on the property through this accessory allowance, provided the farm is actually operating and the placement meets setback rules. Buyers picturing a multi-generational setup, or a future guest house for family, need to ask about this provision by name rather than assuming a standard accessory dwelling unit process will apply. It won't. It's tied to the acreage being a working farm, not to the buyer's personal plans for the land.
A Second Legal System Running Underneath the First
Separate from anything Potter Township's zoning map controls, Pennsylvania's Agricultural Area Security Law, Act 43 of 1981, lets landowners petition to form an Agricultural Security Area. The threshold for creating one is a combined 250 acres, and it can be built from parcels under different ownership as long as each qualifying tract is at least 10 acres.
Enrollment in an ASA doesn't touch dwelling counts or lot lines. What it does is shield the enrolled farm from local nuisance ordinances and give it added protection from government condemnation, the kind of legal backing that lets a neighboring dairy operation keep running its normal schedule, manure spreading and all, without a new resident down the road building a case against it. Centre County has been active in this space. According to a January 2025 announcement, the county's Agricultural Land Preservation Program had preserved 67 farms with 36 more on a waiting list, and county commissioner Mark Higgins noted a tendency to concentrate preservation in the greater State College area and the Penns Valley area specifically.
Here's where the conflation happens. A buyer touring land near Centre Hall sees "Agricultural Security Area" on a listing and reads it as reassurance, quiet surroundings, protected views, a farm that isn't going anywhere. All of that can be true. But it says nothing about whether the parcel they're actually buying, or the one next to it, could someday be split into additional home sites. That question belongs entirely to the township's zoning bracket, not to the state's farmland law. They're two separate systems that happen to sit on the same piece of ground, and a listing can satisfy one without the buyer knowing anything about the other.
What to Ask Before You Write the Offer
A few direct questions save a lot of confusion later:
- What zoning district applies to this specific parcel, and has the township zoning officer confirmed how many principal dwelling units the acreage supports under the current bracket?
- Is this tract, or an adjoining one, enrolled in an Agricultural Security Area, and separately, does that have any bearing on the number of homes this land is actually zoned to allow? (The honest answer is usually no, but it's worth hearing the township say so directly.)
- If the plan includes housing for family or farm labor, does the accessory mobile home allowance for farms over 50 acres apply, and what does the township require for placement and setbacks?
- Does any portion of the land fall inside Potter Township's Water Quality District overlay near the Centre Hall Borough line, which adds groundwater protection requirements on top of the base agricultural zoning?
None of these questions show up automatically on a listing sheet. They come from asking the township directly, and from having someone in the room during the tour who knows to ask them.
The Price Environment Underneath All This
As of July 2026, the average home value in Centre Hall sits around $345,683, up roughly 1.6 percent over the previous year. That's a modest, slow-moving number, not a market where buyers are racing each other to close before a price runs away. Which is exactly why the zoning bracket questions matter more here than they would in a market where speed forces everyone to skip due diligence. There's time to call the township, time to confirm the bracket, time to find out whether the neighboring 250 acres is enrolled in an Agricultural Security Area before you decide how much that view is actually worth. The risk in a market like this isn't overpaying because you rushed. It's overpaying because you assumed acreage worked the way it looks like it should, in a straight line, when the township's own ordinance says otherwise.
A Few Direct Questions
Does an Agricultural Security Area restrict what I can do with my own house? No. ASA enrollment protects the farm operation from nuisance claims and eases condemnation risk. It doesn't add or remove any zoning restriction on a buyer's own residence.
Can I combine two smaller adjoining parcels to cross the 200-acre threshold? That depends on how the township treats a merger of separately deeded parcels for zoning purposes, which is a question for the zoning officer before you assume the combined acreage automatically unlocks the higher bracket.
Does any of this apply inside Centre Hall Borough itself? The density brackets and the accessory mobile home allowance described here are Potter Township provisions for land in the agricultural district. The borough has its own, separate zoning, so a lot inside Centre Hall's borough limits is governed by different rules entirely.
If you're looking at acreage anywhere around Centre Hall and want someone to walk through the zoning bracket with you before you write an offer, Theresa Layton would love to help. Let's Connect and figure out what that land can actually become, not just what the flyer says it is.
