Clarke County

Clarke County's Department of Planning and Zoning handles zoning permits, Special Use Permits, site plan review, subdivision review, and conservation-easement coordination for every parcel in the county except those inside the Towns of Berryville and Boyce (which administer their own zoning and permitting) and the small federal/state parcels. Building Inspections issues building permits and trade permits for the same non-town territory. A typical ADU-like permit bundle (where a second dwelling is permitted) includes: (1) easement-holder consent, where applicable - this is frequently the FIRST step on Clarke County rural projects because more than half of the county's farmland is under conservation easement and the easement holder's consent is contractually required before the county can issue zoning approval, (2) a Special Use Permit from the Board of Supervisors with Planning Commission recommendation, unless the parcel qualifies for an AOC / FOC family-member or farm-labor dwelling allowance, (3) a Zoning Permit confirming use compliance and district setback compliance, (4) a Building Permit with stamped residential plans, (5) Electrical, Plumbing, and Mechanical trade permits, (6) a Virginia Department of Health Lord Fairfax Health District construction permit for well and/or septic on parcels not served by public water or sewer (which is the great majority of parcels - public water and sewer are limited to portions of Berryville and Boyce and a small number of nearby parcels), (7) a Floodplain Development Permit if any portion of the parcel is within the mapped Special Flood Hazard Area along the Shenandoah River, Spout Run, or other tributaries, (8) limited Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act review - Clarke County is NOT a Tidewater locality (the Tidewater designation generally applies to counties east of the Fall Line, and Clarke is well west of the Fall Line in the Shenandoah Valley) so the CBPA RPA / RMA framework does not apply directly, but Clarke voluntarily participates in some Bay-watershed water-quality programs given that the Shenandoah River drains to the Potomac and ultimately to the Chesapeake Bay, (9) Historic District review if the parcel is within a designated local historic overlay (notably the Berryville Historic District administered by the town, the Long Branch Historic House and Farm vicinity, the Audley vicinity, and the Millwood Historic District anchored by the Burwell-Morgan Mill).

Clarke County real estate is assessed by the Office of the Commissioner of the Revenue working with the Real Estate Assessment Office. Clarke County operates on a periodic general-reassessment cycle under Va. Code Section 58.1-3252; the county historically uses a multi-year cycle (commonly four-year cycle) with reassessments typically contracted to an outside assessment firm. An ADU or second-dwelling addition is captured through the supplemental real-estate-improvement process under Va. Code Section 58.1-3292: the Commissioner of the Revenue receives the building-permit record and Certificate of Occupancy from Building Inspections, and the Real Estate Assessment Office adds the ADU's assessed value to the parcel's land and improvement base, prorated to the completion date. The primary dwelling is NOT re-valued off-cycle as a result of the ADU addition. State parklands (a small footprint in Clarke County including state-owned conservation land) and federal parcels are not assessed by the county. Conservation easement valuations are reflected in assessed value through the Land Use Assessment program (Va. Code Section 58.1-3229 et seq.) and through deed-restriction-based market-value adjustments at reassessment.

Assessment policy: An ADU is captured as a real-estate improvement under Va. Code Title 58.1 Subtitle III Chapter 32. On receipt of the building permit and (later) the Certificate of Occupancy from Building Inspections, the Real Estate Assessment Office prorates the supplemental assessment from the completion date through the end of the tax year under Va. Code Section 58.1-3292. The ADU is added at its assessed fair-market value (typically derived from cost approach using Marshall & Swift residential cost multipliers calibrated to the current reassessment-cycle base) on top of the parcel's existing land and improvement value; the existing primary dwelling is NOT revalued off-cycle. There is no Clarke-County-specific ADU assessment exemption. Standard Virginia real-estate tax relief programs (elderly and disabled relief under Va. Code Section 58.1-3210 as adopted locally, disabled-veteran exemption under Va. Code Section 58.1-3219.5) apply to the homeowner's principal residence and may extend to the parcel as a whole depending on local-option rules; they do not create a separate carve-out for the ADU itself. Land Use Assessment (Va. Code Section 58.1-3229 et seq.) is locally adopted and is consequential in Clarke County, where working farmland (grains, cattle, equestrian operations, and orchard operations particularly along the eastern Blue Ridge fringe) is extensive. Conservation-easement-encumbered parcels typically carry assessed values significantly below comparable un-easemented parcels because the easement permanently reduces development potential.

Clarke County administers several overlay regimes that bear materially on ADU projects, and the county's distinctive land-conservation politics produce a uniquely heavy easement-and-historic-overlay layer compared to most Virginia rural counties. The relevant overlays are: (1) a Floodplain Overlay District tied to FEMA Special Flood Hazard Areas, with material coverage along the Shenandoah River, Spout Run, and the smaller tributary creeks; (2) conservation-easement encumbrance across a substantial fraction of county acreage - more than half of Clarke County's farmland is under easement held by the Virginia Outdoors Foundation, the Potomac Conservancy, the Land Trust of Virginia, or smaller conservation entities, and easement-holder consent is contractually required for ADU and other modifications independent of zoning approval; (3) locally-adopted historic overlays including the Berryville Historic District (administered by the Town of Berryville, not the county), the Millwood Historic District anchored by the 1782 Burwell-Morgan Mill, the Long Branch Historic House and Farm vicinity, the Audley vicinity, and numerous individually-listed NRHP plantations and village cores including the Carter Hall plantation house (built 1792, NRHP-listed) and the Saratoga plantation (NRHP-listed); (4) the Appalachian Trail National Scenic Trail corridor along the Blue Ridge crest, with NPS-administered viewshed considerations on parcels visible from the AT; (5) state parkland at the Sky Meadows State Park (in neighboring Fauquier County but with viewshed reach into Clarke), and the Blandy Experimental Farm / State Arboretum of Virginia (a 700-acre research farm and arboretum near White Post, owned by the University of Virginia and the only state arboretum); (6) the Virginia Department of Forestry coordinated activity along forested Blue Ridge parcels, although Virginia has no statewide WUI overlay. Clarke County is NOT a Tidewater locality under the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act (the Tidewater designation generally applies east of the Fall Line, and Clarke is well west of the Fall Line), so the CBPA RPA / RMA framework does NOT apply directly. The county's strong land-conservation politics, however, mean that voluntary water-quality and viewshed protection programs are extensive even without the CBPA framework. Clarke County has NO California-style coastal commission, NO CalFire-equivalent WUI regulatory overlay, and NO seismic-retrofit overlay.

• Floodplain Overlay District
• Conservation easement encumbrance (Virginia Outdoors Foundation, Potomac Conservancy, Land Trust of Virginia)
• Millwood Historic District, Long Branch Historic House and Farm vicinity, Carter Hall, Saratoga, and the Berryville Historic District (town-administered)
• Appalachian Trail National Scenic Trail viewshed corridor