Is Virginia a home rule state or a Dillon's Rule state?

Virginia is a strict Dillon's Rule state: counties, cities, and towns can only exercise zoning and land-use powers that the General Assembly has expressly granted, primarily through Title 15.2, Chapter 22 of the Code of Virginia. Localities sometimes need specific state legislation to adopt tools that are taken for granted in home-rule states.

How do I find the zoning for a parcel in Virginia?

Check the GIS or real-estate assessment portal of the specific locality where the parcel sits — Virginia has roughly 95 counties plus several dozen independent cities, each maintaining its own zoning map and ordinance rather than sharing a county-wide system with any city inside its boundary.

Can I build an accessory dwelling unit (ADU) in Virginia?

It depends entirely on the locality — Virginia has no statewide ADU legalization mandate. Some jurisdictions, including Arlington and Alexandria, allow accessory dwellings by right in at least some zones, while many others still require a special-use permit or prohibit them outright.

What's the difference between an independent city and a county in Virginia?

In Virginia, incorporated cities are legally independent of any county and administer their own zoning, schools, and courts entirely separately — Virginia is the only state where this is true of every city. Counties, by contrast, may contain incorporated towns that still fall under county zoning unless the town has adopted its own.

Virginia · state zoning reference · Parcel data · lookup only

Virginia zoning: how it works and what you can build

Virginia is a strict Dillon's Rule state where every zoning power a locality exercises must trace to an express state grant, and it is the only state where every incorporated city is legally independent of any county — so a developer working across a metro area may be dealing with a patchwork of fully separate zoning authorities rather than one county umbrella.

How zoning works in Virginia

Virginia is a Dillon's Rule jurisdiction: counties, cities, and towns have only the zoning powers the General Assembly has expressly delegated, and courts read those grants narrowly. The core delegation sits in Title 15.2, Chapter 22 of the Code of Virginia ("Planning, Subdivision of Land and Zoning"), which authorizes localities to adopt comprehensive plans and zoning ordinances, create planning commissions and boards of zoning appeals, and use tools like conditional (proffered) zoning and overlay districts. Because the enabling authority is statutory rather than constitutional home rule, localities occasionally seek specific legislation from the General Assembly to unlock tools other states grant more broadly, such as inclusionary zoning or certain affordable-dwelling-unit ordinances.

The distinctive structural feature for developers is Virginia's independent-city system: unlike most states, Virginia's incorporated cities (Richmond, Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Alexandria, and dozens more) are not part of any county and administer zoning entirely on their own, while the state's 95 counties zone their unincorporated and incorporated-town territory separately. A project spanning what looks like one metro area can therefore cross several fully independent zoning regimes with no shared county-level review.

Virginia has not enacted a statewide missing-middle mandate or a blanket ADU legalization law comparable to those passed in West Coast states; zoning liberalization has instead happened locality by locality. The most-watched example is Arlington County's 2023 Expanded Housing Options ordinance, which ended single-family-only zoning and allowed small multifamily buildings on lots previously restricted to detached houses, though implementation was capped and has faced legal challenges. Developers should expect meaningful variation in what's permitted by right from one Virginia locality to the next, and should not assume a reform adopted in one jurisdiction reflects state policy.

Who holds the zoning power

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

Planning, Subdivision of Land and Zoning Code of Virginia, Title 15.2, Chapter 22: The core Dillon's Rule delegation authorizing counties, cities, and towns to adopt comprehensive plans, zoning ordinances, and subdivision regulations.

Major cities and their codes

The enabling act sets the ceiling; the municipal code is what a project is actually reviewed against. The 7 largest Virginia jurisdictions and the codes they administer:

Virginia — municipal zoning codes
City	Zoning code
Virginia Beach	Virginia Beach City Zoning Ordinance (CZO) Largest city by population; uses a rural-suburban growth boundary (the 'Green Line') to hold agricultural land in the southern part of the city outside the development area.
Chesapeake	Chesapeake Zoning Ordinance Mixes dense urban districts with large tracts of rural and agricultural zoning within one independent city.
Norfolk	Norfolk Zoning Ordinance Coastal flood exposure has driven resilience-focused zoning and design standards in low-lying districts.
Richmond	Richmond Zoning Ordinance State capital; recent corridor rezonings and the Richmond 300 master plan have pushed toward denser, more mixed-use districts near transit.
Newport News	Newport News Zoning Ordinance Long, narrow city geography with zoning tied closely to shipyard and port-adjacent industrial districts.
Alexandria	Alexandria Zoning Ordinance Independent city bordering DC; has pursued citywide zoning text amendments to permit more housing types beyond detached single-family.
Hampton	Hampton Zoning Ordinance Smaller Hampton Roads independent city with zoning oriented around historic districts and waterfront redevelopment.

Recent reforms

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

2023 Arlington County Expanded Housing Options Arlington ended single-family-only zoning countywide, allowing small multifamily buildings on lots previously limited to detached houses, subject to an annual permit cap.

Parcel & GIS data

Parcel and zoning data are maintained at the locality level (independent cities and counties each run their own GIS), with the Virginia Geographic Information Network (VGIN) coordinating statewide base imagery and data-sharing standards rather than hosting a single unified parcel layer.

Real parcel geometry is already loaded for Newport News and Richmond — 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 Virginia city below, explaining the district codes that appear on its zoning map — 72 district codes across Virginia so far.

Virginia zoning — common questions

Is Virginia a home rule state or a Dillon's Rule state?: Virginia is a strict Dillon's Rule state: counties, cities, and towns can only exercise zoning and land-use powers that the General Assembly has expressly granted, primarily through Title 15.2, Chapter 22 of the Code of Virginia. Localities sometimes need specific state legislation to adopt tools that are taken for granted in home-rule states.
How do I find the zoning for a parcel in Virginia?: Check the GIS or real-estate assessment portal of the specific locality where the parcel sits — Virginia has roughly 95 counties plus several dozen independent cities, each maintaining its own zoning map and ordinance rather than sharing a county-wide system with any city inside its boundary.
Can I build an accessory dwelling unit (ADU) in Virginia?: It depends entirely on the locality — Virginia has no statewide ADU legalization mandate. Some jurisdictions, including Arlington and Alexandria, allow accessory dwellings by right in at least some zones, while many others still require a special-use permit or prohibit them outright.
What's the difference between an independent city and a county in Virginia?: In Virginia, incorporated cities are legally independent of any county and administer their own zoning, schools, and courts entirely separately — Virginia is the only state where this is true of every city. Counties, by contrast, may contain incorporated towns that still fall under county zoning unless the town has adopted its own.

Working in Virginia? 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 Virginia opens, and sooner if we need a test parcel.

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

Virginia 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.