I’m looking to apply for an 07 FFL. I didn’t think it would even be an issue in my county. Turns out I’ve got to apply for a variance. The county zoner wants a very detailed description of my business to be conducted to put in front of the county lawyer before it is submitted to the board.

What type of document have others used for this? Should I try to get a lawyer or land use lawyer to draft something up for me?

I doubt you're the first person in your county to go through this. You can check the FFL database to be sure.

But if any were done in the last couple of years, ask them for copies of variance requests that have been approved for the same purpose. Then use that as a template.

This is exactly what I did. Easy peasy. My zoning board was pretty cool about it. The guy across the street was applying for a variance to have a fence in his front yard at the same meeting. Zoning board leader: "So we have one guy that wants to deal guns, and his neighbor wants a barricade around his house. Got it."

There are 17 FFLs in the nearest town, 3 of them being 07 I believe. My father is an 01 FFL and used to have an SOT at one point. That was so long ago that I don’t believe he had to do anything with the county.

The guy down in zoning was awfully worried that I had to have every detail spelled out so that no fault can fall on the county for letting me be an FFL. The problem is that I don’t have a solid business plan on how deep I want to go into the gunsmith or manufacturing side of things.

I can stop by the one 07 FFL that I’m
familiar with and see if they are willing to help.

Edit: I’m 20 miles out of town with hardly anyone around. I honestly didn’t think that this was going to be a big deal.

None of those 17 were recently granted a license in a residential area?

They sure made it sound like what I was doing different.  When I tried explaining that I wasn’t looking to open a manufacturing facility we almost got crossways.  It seems that I need something well prepared.

I was ready to mail my application. The county official told me that the county lawyer has a lot on his plate right now with more wind energy looking to come in the area so I was told he’s not going to push my FFL application to the top of the priority list.

When I applied for my FFL, the IOI emailed the town zoning/planning/business people and basically highlighted/underlined "manufacturing" and made sure that was allowed in my area.

Be prepared to explain that the AFT definition of manufacturing is different from the rest of the world.
It'll depend on what you want to do, but you can explain that you want to assemble a few AR's, maybe mount a scope/accessory/part on a rifle your business owns, stuff like that (AFT manufacturing) and that you're not going to put in assembly lines and smokestacks and blow smog everywhere.

Show them the ATF definition of "manufacturer" ie assembling an AR15.

Say you'll be doing transfers, occasional garage machining (that's not different than any hobby mechanic). Hand tools, drill press/router/whatever you have. Say what you don't have, no CNC, no lathe/whatever.