Does my city or county in Alabama have zoning authority?

Alabama is a Dillon's Rule state, so municipalities must derive zoning power from Title 11, Chapter 52 of the Alabama Code, and most cities have adopted zoning ordinances under it. Counties, however, have zoning authority only where the legislature or a local act has specifically granted it — many rural Alabama counties have no zoning at all outside city limits, so unincorporated land can be effectively unregulated for land use.

Can I build an accessory dwelling unit (ADU) on a single-family lot in Alabama?

Alabama has no statewide ADU law; whether an ADU is allowed depends entirely on the local zoning ordinance. Huntsville, for example, permits ADUs by right in qualifying single-family districts, while other cities restrict or prohibit them, so check the specific municipal zoning ordinance before assuming a lot is eligible.

How do I look up zoning for a parcel in Alabama?

Start with the city or county planning or revenue department where the parcel sits, since Alabama has no single statewide zoning-lookup portal. Larger cities such as Birmingham, Huntsville, and Mobile publish interactive zoning maps; for unincorporated county land, confirm first whether the county has adopted zoning at all.

What's the difference between Mobile's Unified Development Code and a traditional zoning ordinance?

Mobile's 2022 Unified Development Code merges what used to be separate zoning, subdivision, and design-standard ordinances into one integrated document, streamlining review for a single project that would otherwise touch multiple codes. Most other Alabama cities, including Birmingham and Montgomery, still operate under a traditional stand-alone Euclidean zoning ordinance.

Alabama · state zoning reference · Parcel data · lookup only

Alabama zoning: how it works and what you can build

Alabama is a Dillon's Rule state where zoning power exists only where the legislature has explicitly granted it — most municipalities zone under a single statewide enabling chapter, but many counties still have no zoning authority at all, making jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction diligence essential.

How zoning works in Alabama

Alabama follows Dillon's Rule: municipalities have only the powers the state legislature has expressly granted them, and there is no general home-rule authority for land use. Every incorporated city or town that zones does so under a single statewide chapter — Title 11, Chapter 52 of the Code of Alabama — which authorizes a municipal planning commission and a standard ordinance-adoption procedure for zoning districts and subdivision plats.

County zoning is the exception rather than the rule in Alabama. Many counties historically had no statutory zoning authority whatsoever; some, such as Shelby, Baldwin, and Madison, have since obtained authority to zone unincorporated land through county-specific action, while many rural counties remain unzoned outside city limits. Before assuming any land-use control applies to an unincorporated Alabama parcel, a developer needs to confirm the county has actually adopted zoning.

Alabama has not enacted a statewide ADU mandate, missing-middle housing law, or zoning-preemption statute comparable to recent reforms in Arizona or California — land-use modernization in Alabama happens ordinance by ordinance, city by city. Mobile consolidated its zoning, subdivision, and design standards into a single Unified Development Code in 2022; Montgomery is currently rewriting a zoning ordinance that dates to 1985. Birmingham and Huntsville continue to administer traditional Euclidean zoning ordinances through their planning departments.

Who holds the zoning power

Land-use authority in Alabama is delegated by statute, not assumed — these are the acts a zoning ordinance in Alabama has to trace back to.

Zoning Enabling Act (Municipal Planning Commissions) Ala. Code §§ 11-52-70 to 11-52-84: Authorizes a municipality's governing body to divide the city into zoning districts and adopt zoning regulations.
Municipal Planning Commission Act Ala. Code §§ 11-52-1 to 11-52-13: Establishes municipal planning commissions and vests them with the zoning and subdivision-review powers cities exercise.
Subdivision Regulation Act Ala. Code §§ 11-52-30 to 11-52-37: Governs planning-commission review and approval of subdivision plats within a municipality's platting jurisdiction.

Major cities and their codes

The enabling act sets the ceiling; the municipal code is what a project is actually reviewed against. The 6 largest Alabama jurisdictions and the codes they administer:

Alabama — municipal zoning codes
City	Zoning code
Birmingham	City of Birmingham Zoning Ordinance Alabama's largest city; administered by the Planning, Engineering & Permits department under a traditional Euclidean base-district ordinance.
Huntsville	Huntsville Zoning Ordinance Fast-growing aerospace and tech hub; permits accessory dwelling units by right on qualifying single-family lots.
Montgomery	Montgomery Zoning Ordinance State capital operating on a 1985-vintage ordinance now undergoing a full rewrite under Envision Montgomery 2040.
Mobile	Mobile Unified Development Code Adopted 2022, consolidating zoning, subdivision, and design-standard ordinances into a single unified code.
Tuscaloosa	City of Tuscaloosa Zoning Ordinance Home to the University of Alabama; zoning shaped heavily by student-housing infill pressure.
Hoover	City of Hoover Zoning Ordinance Large Birmingham-metro suburb with substantial commercial-corridor and planned-unit-development zoning.

Recent reforms

State-level changes override or preempt what a local ordinance says — these are the Alabama reforms that move the numbers on a real site.

2022 Mobile Unified Development Code Mobile consolidated its zoning, subdivision, and design-standard ordinances into a single Unified Development Code.

Parcel & GIS data

Alabama has no unified statewide parcel-GIS portal comparable to some other states; parcel and zoning data are maintained independently by each county's revenue or GIS office, with partial aggregation available through the Alabama GIS open data portal and the AlabamaView remote-sensing consortium.

Real parcel geometry is already loaded for Birmingham — see the zoning-by-city section above for a live district-and-parcel lookup there. That is not the same as a cited feasibility report: Chicago is still the only jurisdiction with bulk standards, § citations and a generated massing scheme.

Zoning by city

The statute sets who may zone; the city's own code sets what you can build. One guide per Alabama city below, explaining the district codes that appear on its zoning map — 85 district codes across Alabama so far.

Alabama zoning — common questions

Does my city or county in Alabama have zoning authority?: Alabama is a Dillon's Rule state, so municipalities must derive zoning power from Title 11, Chapter 52 of the Alabama Code, and most cities have adopted zoning ordinances under it. Counties, however, have zoning authority only where the legislature or a local act has specifically granted it — many rural Alabama counties have no zoning at all outside city limits, so unincorporated land can be effectively unregulated for land use.
Can I build an accessory dwelling unit (ADU) on a single-family lot in Alabama?: Alabama has no statewide ADU law; whether an ADU is allowed depends entirely on the local zoning ordinance. Huntsville, for example, permits ADUs by right in qualifying single-family districts, while other cities restrict or prohibit them, so check the specific municipal zoning ordinance before assuming a lot is eligible.
How do I look up zoning for a parcel in Alabama?: Start with the city or county planning or revenue department where the parcel sits, since Alabama has no single statewide zoning-lookup portal. Larger cities such as Birmingham, Huntsville, and Mobile publish interactive zoning maps; for unincorporated county land, confirm first whether the county has adopted zoning at all.
What's the difference between Mobile's Unified Development Code and a traditional zoning ordinance?: Mobile's 2022 Unified Development Code merges what used to be separate zoning, subdivision, and design-standard ordinances into one integrated document, streamlining review for a single project that would otherwise touch multiple codes. Most other Alabama cities, including Birmingham and Montgomery, still operate under a traditional stand-alone Euclidean zoning ordinance.

Working in Alabama? Get on the list.

The parcel layer lands in the order demand does. Illinois went first because that's where the deals were; the next state is decided by who tells us what they're trying to underwrite. Tell us where you're building and what you wanted to run — you'll hear from us when Alabama opens, and sooner if we need a test parcel.

Keep reading

← All 50 states

Want to see the finished shape of this work? Illinois is live at parcel level — Illinois zoning and the 53-district Chicago reference.

Alabama zoning summaries on this page are provided for information, not legal advice. Confirm every project against the current adopted code for the jurisdiction and the statute as amended.