Smithfield

Isle of Wight County, Virginia regulates accessory dwellings under its Zoning Ordinance (Appendix B of the Isle of Wight County Code). As of 2026-04-21, Isle of Wight County has NOT enacted a modern ADU-preemption-style ordinance permitting detached ADUs ministerially by right on all single-family-residential parcels. The ordinance permits 'accessory apartments' and related family-member / guest-house arrangements under narrow conditions in certain residential and rural-agricultural districts, typically subject to minimum lot area, owner-occupancy of the primary dwelling, size caps (commonly expressed as a percentage of the primary dwelling's gross floor area or as an absolute square-foot cap, whichever is less), familial-relationship requirements for family-member units, and in many districts a conditional-use-permit or special-use-permit (SUP) process administered by the Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors. Virginia is a Dillon Rule state with no statewide ADU preemption (see src/data/state-adu-research/virginia.json for the full state framework) — ADU preemption bills have been introduced in the 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025 General Assembly sessions without enactment. Isle of Wight County's ordinance therefore operates without any state floor that would mandate permissibility, ministerial review, fee caps, or removal of owner-occupancy restrictions. Applicants planning an accessory dwelling in Isle of Wight County should (a) first determine whether the parcel is inside the Town of Smithfield or the Town of Windsor — if so, the town's own zoning ordinance controls the ADU use permission (though county-wide overlays still apply) — otherwise the county's Appendix B controls; (b) confirm the parcel's zoning district on the county's GIS / parcel-lookup viewer; (c) consult the use table in the applicable zoning district chapter of Appendix B for accessory-apartment and family-member-dwelling eligibility; (d) check the supplementary-regulations chapter for lot-area and owner-occupancy conditions; (e) identify whether the parcel sits inside any of the county's overlay districts (Chesapeake Bay Preservation Area Resource Protection Area, FEMA Special Flood Hazard Area, Historic District overlay covering specific designated areas, airport noise zone for the Franklin Municipal Airport approach surfaces to the south, or military-compatibility-planning areas associated with Joint Base Langley-Eustis across the James River); and (f) engage Planning and Zoning Department staff pre-application.

• Isle of Wight County Code, Appendix B (Zoning Ordinance) — use table, accessory-structure regulations, accessory-apartment and family-member-accessory-dwelling supplementary regulations; Appendix B overlay district provisions (Chesapeake Bay Preservation Area, Floodplain Management, Historic Overlay where designated, Airport Safety Overlay where applicable)
• Virginia Code § 15.2-2280 et seq. (zoning enabling authority for Virginia counties); § 15.2-2286 (provisions that may be included in a zoning ordinance); § 15.2-2285 (procedure for adopting and amending a zoning ordinance); § 15.2-2310 (Board of Zoning Appeals); Dillon Rule doctrine
• Va. Code Title 62.1 Chapter 3.1 Article 2.5 (Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act — § 62.1-44.15:67 et seq.); 9VAC25-830 et seq. (CBPA regulations); Isle of Wight County Chesapeake Bay Preservation Area ordinance
• Isle of Wight County Comprehensive Plan

State-floor overlay: Virginia has NOT enacted a statewide ADU preemption law. Va. Code § 15.2-2280 et seq. delegates zoning authority to counties, independent cities, and towns, subject to Planning Commission procedure and advertised public hearing under § 15.2-2285. No state floor mandates ADU permissibility, ministerial review, minimum allowed size, parking-requirement ceilings, or removal of owner-occupancy requirements. Localities can and do heavily condition or prohibit ADUs under this framework. ADU preemption bills have been introduced in the 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025 Virginia General Assembly sessions without enactment. Isle of Wight County's Zoning Ordinance and the Town of Smithfield and Town of Windsor ordinances therefore operate without a state ceiling on local restrictions — whatever the local ordinance says controls. See src/data/state-adu-research/virginia.json for the full statutory framework.

• 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 DEQ provides statewide CBPA guidance at deq.virginia.gov/our-programs/water/chesapeake-bay; VMRC handles tidal-wetland and subaqueous-bottom permitting at mrc.virginia.gov. Isle of Wight County has historically participated actively in CBPA implementation reviews and maintains its own program documentation on the Planning and Zoning Department web pages.
• 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 freeboard commonly imposed above BFE per local ordinance. Flood-zone status also affects flood-insurance cost under NFIP Risk Rating 2.0, which has significantly changed premium structure since its 2021-2023 rollout. Hampton Roads localities including Isle of Wight County are engaged in regional sea-level-rise and shoreline-resilience planning through the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission (HRPDC) and its sea-level-rise / coastal-resilience initiatives; applicants in coastal zones should factor long-term flood-risk trajectory into ADU siting decisions.
• historic-district — Register-listed status (National or Virginia) 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 (administered by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources at dhr.virginia.gov) do apply to register-listed properties and can materially improve the economics of an ADU-adjacent rehab if the property qualifies. Applicants building an ADU adjacent to a register-listed landmark should also check whether any federally-assisted aspect of the project (Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act) applies.
• airport-noise-zone — Applicants building an accessory dwelling in the southwestern portion of the county should check parcel status against any Airport Safety Overlay on the county GIS viewer. Height restrictions are the most common constraint for parcels within transitional surfaces; residential-use compatibility and real-estate disclosure obligations apply within designated noise contours where adopted. The county does not prohibit residential use within noise zones but does require acknowledgement in parcels subject to the overlay.
• other — Regional compatibility planning is a recurring topic in Hampton Roads planning. Applicants should check the county GIS viewer for any parcel-specific military-compatibility or emergency-planning overlay flags, and consult Planning and Zoning Department staff for current guidance on how regional policies have been incorporated into local review. The Surry Nuclear Power Station EPZ is administered through Surry County and the Commonwealth's VDEM; Isle of Wight's portion of the EPZ primarily generates emergency-preparedness obligations rather than construction restrictions.

For parcels outside the Town of Smithfield and the Town of Windsor (that is, every parcel in the large unincorporated portion of Isle of Wight County including Carrollton, Rushmere, Benns Church, Zuni, Walters, Ivor, Carrsville, Battery Park, and the Isle of Wight courthouse community), the county is the permitting authority. The Isle of Wight County Planning and Zoning Department (zoning compliance, subdivision review, comprehensive-plan consistency, CBPA administration) and the Isle of Wight County Department of Inspections / Building Inspections (building-code plan review, permits, inspections under the Virginia Uniform Statewide Building Code) jointly administer the two-track review that any accessory-dwelling application must complete: (a) a zoning-compliance determination under Appendix B of the county code confirming the proposed accessory dwelling fits a permitted or conditionally-permitted category in the parcel's zoning district and satisfies any overlay-district requirements; 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. For parcels where Appendix B does not permit a second dwelling by right, the applicant must first obtain a conditional-use permit (CUP) or special-use permit (SUP) through the Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors, or in some cases a variance through the Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) under Va. Code § 15.2-2309. For parcels inside the Town of Smithfield or the Town of Windsor, the town's own Planning / Zoning office is the zoning authority; however, the county's Department of Inspections typically handles building-code inspections under a cooperative arrangement common among Virginia small towns, and the county's CBPA program applies to parcels in tidal portions of either town. Applicants should always verify the current permitting split by calling both the county and the town before filing.