Henrico County

Every parcel in Henrico County is unincorporated (the county contains no incorporated towns and no independent cities are located inside its boundaries), so the county's Department of Planning and Department of Building Construction and Inspections (Building Inspections) are the sole permitting authorities for any accessory-dwelling construction in Henrico. The combined permit path is a two-track review: (a) a zoning-compliance determination confirming the proposed accessory dwelling fits a permitted or conditionally permitted category under Chapter 24 (handled by the Planning Department's zoning-plan-review staff), and (b) a building-code plan review and inspection cycle confirming compliance with the Virginia Uniform Statewide Building Code (USBC), which incorporates the Virginia Residential Code and associated state-adopted supplements (handled by Building Inspections). For parcels where Chapter 24 does not permit a second dwelling by right, the applicant must first obtain a provisional-use permit, special-exception approval, or zoning variance through the Board of Zoning Appeals or the Planning Commission / Board of Supervisors, depending on the procedure Chapter 24 specifies for the use category. Henrico uses an online permit portal (Citizen Self Service) for building-permit intake and an in-person pre-application conference process (offered free of charge to applicants) for zoning questions.

Process overview: Typical accessory-dwelling permit sequence in Henrico County: (a) applicant uses the county's Online Data Services / GIS viewer to confirm parcel zoning classification, lot size, existing primary-dwelling square footage, and any overlay designations (Chesapeake Bay Preservation Area Resource Protection Area or Resource Management Area, airport approach zone for Richmond International Airport, Tuckahoe Creek Service District boundaries, historic overlay districts including Tuckahoe Plantation vicinity, flood-hazard areas per the county's FEMA-delegated floodplain management program); (b) applicant schedules a free zoning pre-application conference with Planning Department staff to confirm whether the proposed accessory dwelling is permitted by right, requires a provisional-use permit (PUP), requires a special-exception (SE), or is outright prohibited in the parcel's zoning district; (c) if a PUP or SE is required, applicant files the appropriate application (with fee) and proceeds through Planning Commission and, where required, Board of Supervisors public-hearing review — this can add several months to the timeline and requires notice to adjoining property owners; (d) once zoning entitlement is secured, applicant files a residential building permit through Citizen Self Service with site plan, floor plans, elevations, energy-compliance documentation (Virginia Energy Conservation Code), structural details for detached units, and Virginia-certified design-professional seals where required by building size and occupancy; (e) Henrico Building Inspections performs plan review, issues the building permit, and schedules inspections (typically footing, foundation, framing, rough-in plumbing/electrical/mechanical, insulation, final); (f) the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Area review layer applies to parcels within RPA/RMA boundaries (much of Henrico drains to the Chickahominy or James River and is CBPA-designated) and requires a separate water-quality-impact assessment and/or variance if impervious coverage thresholds are exceeded; (g) floodplain-development permits apply to parcels in FEMA Special Flood Hazard Areas; (h) after construction, the Real Estate Assessment Division of the Department of Finance issues a supplemental assessment. Henrico does NOT offer a ministerial 60-day state-mandated ADU review clock — Virginia has no statewide review-time preemption — so timelines vary by project complexity and whether entitlement requires a PUP/SE or is by-right within the existing Chapter 24 framework.

Impact fees: Virginia counties generally DO NOT charge true impact fees in the California or Washington sense — Va. Code § 15.2-2317 et seq. restricts impact-fee authority to designated 'growth areas' meeting narrow eligibility criteria, and Henrico has not established a road-impact-fee program under that authority. Henrico instead assesses (a) proffered conditions negotiated at rezoning, (b) utility connection fees for county water and sewer service (administered by the Department of Public Utilities), (c) building-permit and plan-review fees at cost-recovery rates, and (d) within the Tuckahoe Creek Service District (TCSD, established in the Short Pump / Innsbrook corridor to finance sewer extension), a special ad-valorem tax rate on parcels served. There is no Henrico-County-wide ADU-specific fee waiver because there is no across-the-board impact-fee framework to waive. Water and sewer connection fees for an accessory dwelling depend on whether the ADU adds a new service connection or shares the primary's connection. School fees are not assessed separately in Virginia; school-capital needs are funded through the county's general-fund budget. The Virginia Uniform Statewide Building Code is administered statewide, so building-permit fees are broadly comparable across Virginia localities. (schedule)

Real property in Henrico County is assessed by the Real Estate Assessment Division of the Henrico County Department of Finance (not by an independently elected 'Assessor' as in some states; Henrico's charter places the assessment function inside the county's Finance Department under a Real Estate Assessor who reports to the Director of Finance). Virginia operates on an annual general-reassessment cycle under Va. Code § 58.1-3250 et seq., and Henrico reassesses every parcel each calendar year with a January 1 valuation date and notices typically mailed in late January / early February. An accessory dwelling added to a parcel is treated as 'new construction' and is picked up in the next annual assessment cycle following certificate of occupancy, producing an upward adjustment to the parcel's assessed value reflecting the added improvement. Unlike California's Prop 13 regime, Virginia does not acquisition-value-lock the existing primary dwelling — the whole parcel is reassessed each year to current fair market value (CFMV) — so adding an ADU affects the marginal new-construction component plus any market-value drift on the underlying parcel from the annual reappraisal.

Assessment policy: Henrico performs an annual general reassessment with a January 1 effective valuation date each year per Va. Code § 58.1-3250. Reassessment notices are typically mailed in late January or early February and show the new land value, improvements value, and total assessed value. Accessory dwellings added to a parcel produce both (a) a new-construction adjustment reflecting the added improvements and (b) any general market-value drift on the parcel under the year's mass-appraisal models. Virginia applies the statewide constitutional requirement of fair-market-value assessment (Va. Const. art. X § 2; Va. Code § 58.1-3201) — assessments must reflect 100% of fair market value. The county's real-estate tax rate is set annually by the Board of Supervisors. Henrico has historically maintained one of the lower effective real-estate tax rates among the large Central Virginia localities. For budgeting purposes, applicants adding an ADU should expect the ADU's construction cost to translate approximately to added assessed value, with any additional assessment lift coming from improved parcel utility, and should apply the then-current nominal tax rate to estimate the annual carrying-cost increase.

• wetland-overlay — Applicants should always pull a parcel's RPA/RMA overlay on the county GIS viewer before siting any detached accessory dwelling; a structure inside the RPA buffer will trigger administrative-review requirements at minimum, and frequently leads to relocation of the proposed building envelope outside the buffer as the cheapest compliance path. The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) provides statewide CBPA guidance at deq.virginia.gov/our-programs/water/chesapeake-bay.
• flood-zone — FIRM maps published by FEMA are the authoritative flood-zone source; the county's GIS viewer overlays current effective FIRMs on the parcel layer. Finished-floor elevation requirements for residential construction in SFHAs typically require the lowest floor (including basement) to be at or above the base-flood elevation (BFE), with Henrico commonly imposing a 1-foot freeboard above BFE per its local ordinance. Flood-zone status also affects flood-insurance cost under NFIP Risk Rating 2.0.
• airport-noise-zone — Applicants building an accessory dwelling near RIC should check parcel status against the Airport Safety Overlay on the county GIS viewer. Height restrictions are the most common constraint for parcels within transitional surfaces; residential-use compatibility and a real-estate disclosure obligation apply within the designated noise contours. The county does not prohibit residential use within noise zones but does require acknowledgement.
• historic-district — Register-listed (National or Virginia) status alone does NOT by itself create a local review requirement; only locally-designated historic-overlay district status does. However, federal preservation tax incentives and state rehabilitation tax credits do apply to register-listed properties and can materially improve the economics of an ADU-adjacent rehab if the property qualifies.