ADU Pass
Batesville
ADU Pass helps homeowners in Batesville, No County, Virginia navigate the permit paperwork for building an accessory dwelling unit. This area covers 1 ZIP code.
Map
ADU details
ADU legality: allowed
Albemarle County is among the more ADU-permissive Virginia jurisdictions: accessory apartments are by-right in single-family detached dwellings. Batesville-specific complication: the parcel may be within the NRHP Batesville Historic District, which adds design-review scrutiny for visible exterior changes.
Cost scenarios
Permitting process
Viability (permitted uses)
- Long-term rental: yes By-right under Albemarle's accessory-apartment framework.
- Short-term rental: with-restrictions Charlottesville-area wine country and Blue Ridge tourism creates STR demand; Albemarle County regulates STRs separately under a Homestay/Short-Term Rental ordinance — confirm current rules.
- Office rental: unclear Commercial office rental in accessory structure typically requires home occupation permit or SUP.
- Home office: with-restrictions Albemarle Home Occupation permits available under standard conditions.
- Studio / workshop: yes Personal artist/studio use is a normal accessory use.
- Agriculture: yes Rural Areas (RA) district permits broad agricultural accessory uses; many Batesville-area parcels are agricultural and farm-related accessory structures are common.
- Relative support: yes Family-occupancy ADU is the canonical use case; Albemarle is permissive.
Contacts
Utilities
- Water: Private well (Batesville is outside Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority service area)
- Sewer: Private septic (Virginia Department of Health regulated)
- Electric: Dominion Energy Virginia or Central Virginia Electric Cooperative depending on parcel
- Gas: No piped natural gas in rural western Albemarle; propane only
Property values & taxes
Construction timeline
Modular pathway Virginia Industrialized Building Safety Law (IBSL)
Batesville access via narrow rural routes 692 and 635; oversize-load modular delivery requires route survey including Mechums River bridge weight rating.
HOA prevalence & preemption
Rural western Albemarle parcels typically have low HOA density; some subdivisions in the Charlottesville commuter shed may have restrictive covenants.
Regulatory overlays (2)
- historic-district
33 contributing buildings at the Routes 692/635 intersection along the Mechums River. Exterior alterations to contributing structures and new construction visible from contributing streets are subject to Albemarle County Architectural Review Board scrutiny. - flood-zone
Properties along the Mechums River may be within FEMA Special Flood Hazard Areas. Verify the parcel's flood zone before designing.
Technical envelope (climate & building code)
Climate & energy code
Building code
Legal history (timeline)
Current ordinance: Albemarle County Code Chapter 18 — Zoning (Municode-hosted)
- 1999-01-01 — Batesville Historic District added to National Register of Historic Places (historic-designation)
33 contributing buildings around the Routes 692/635 intersection along the Mechums River listed as a 19th- and early-20th-century crossroads community.
Effect: Properties within district boundaries face design-review scrutiny for visible exterior alterations including new accessory structures. - 2010-05-12 — Albemarle County Code Chapter 18 (Zoning) Supplement #61 — accessory apartment provisions (county-ordinance)
Albemarle County zoning ordinance supplements codifying accessory apartment by-right permissions in single-family detached dwellings.
Effect: Established the current Batesville-applicable framework: accessory apartments by-right; detached ADUs typically by SUP; 800 sqft / 35% caps. - 2024-07-01 — Virginia HB1832 (2025) — statewide ADU framework, delayed 2026-07-01 effective date (state-law)
By-right ADUs statewide with $500 fee cap.
Effect: Albemarle already runs an ADU-permissive ordinance; HB1832 may further lower fees and remove SUP requirements for detached units.
Known issues (1)
- policy-review — Virginia HB1832 (2026-07-01 effective date) may simplify detached-ADU permitting by mandating by-right treatment statewide; the SUP requirement for detached ADUs in Albemarle could be preempted. (source)
County: no attribution (synthetic bucket)
No county
This city sits in the state's "no county" bucket — its ADU rules derive directly from state law and city ordinance without a county intermediary. No county-level sections apply.
Virginia state — ADU law and programs
State ADU law
Virginia has NOT enacted a statewide ADU preemption law. Virginia is a Dillon Rule state — localities possess only those powers expressly granted by the General Assembly — and the statutes granting zoning authority (Va. Code § 15.2-2280 et seq.) leave ADU regulation to local ordinances. ADU permission, setbacks, parking, size, and owner-occupancy rules therefore vary by county, independent city, and town. Virginia is unique in that it has 38 independent cities that function as counties (neither in nor subordinate to the surrounding county), meaning 'the county' for any given Virginia property may be an independent city rather than a true county. Several ADU preemption bills have been introduced in recent General Assembly sessions (2022 through 2025) without enactment; none have advanced past committee as of the Assembly's 2026 regular session adjournment.
State financing programs
Virginia does not operate an ADU-specific statewide loan, grant, or forgivable-loan program. Virginia Housing (formerly the Virginia Housing Development Authority, VHDA — rebranded 2020) administers general first-time-homebuyer, down-payment-assistance (DPA), mortgage-credit-certificate, and rehabilitation products that can be applied to ADU-adjacent purchases or improvements when eligibility criteria are met, but none target ADU construction as a distinct product. The Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) administers federal HOME and CDBG pass-through funds that local jurisdictions can direct toward ADU-adjacent rehab, but there is no state-level ADU-dedicated line item. Federally available products (FHA 203(k), Fannie Mae HomeReady and HomeStyle Renovation, Freddie Mac CHOICERenovation) remain the primary ADU financing path for Virginia homeowners.
State housing programs
Virginia does not run a state-level pre-approved-ADU-plan catalog, statewide impact-fee-waiver statute for ADUs, or streamlined-review mandate. State-level programs that touch ADU-adjacent policy are coordinated primarily through the Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) and Virginia Housing, and act by funding or assisting local jurisdictions rather than by preemption. Local ADU activity — Arlington County's Accessory Dwellings program (detached ADUs permitted since 2008, liberalized 2020), Alexandria's accessory-dwelling ordinance, Fairfax County's accessory-living-unit program, and Charlottesville's 2021 zoning-code changes — is authorized under the localities' Va. Code § 15.2-2280 zoning authority, not by state mandate.
- DHCD Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Program — Federal CDBG funds administered by DHCD to eligible non-entitlement Virginia localities for community-revitalization, housing-rehab, and infrastructure projects. Not ADU-specific. Participating localities can direct CDBG funds toward housing-rehab projects where local policy supports ADUs.
- DHCD HOME Investment Partnerships Program — Federal HOME funds administered by DHCD to Virginia participating jurisdictions and non-profits for affordable-housing acquisition, rehab, and new construction. Not ADU-specific; can be directed to ADU-adjacent rehab at local discretion.
- Virginia Housing Commission — Permanent advisory commission of the General Assembly that studies housing-policy questions and recommends legislation. Has periodically studied ADU preemption and missing-middle housing without recommending statewide enactment as of 2026-04-21.
- Local ADU ordinances under Va. Code § 15.2-2280 authority — Not a state program — listed here because Virginia ADU policy is executed entirely at the locality level under the § 15.2-2280 zoning grant. A homeowner seeking to build an ADU consults the zoning ordinance of the specific county, city, or town where the parcel is located.
Federal (United States) — ADU-relevant rules and programs
Federal ADU law
The United States has no federal statute that directly regulates accessory dwelling unit entitlement or design. Land-use authority over ADUs resides with states and local governments under the traditional police power. Federal engagement is limited to financing (Fannie/Freddie/FHA/VA/USDA), flood insurance (FEMA/NFIP), and discretionary housing programs (HUD), which are recorded in sibling sections of this file.
Federal financing programs
Federal housing-finance agencies and GSEs set nationwide underwriting rules that govern whether an ADU can be financed, appraised, and counted toward mortgage qualifying income. The relevant actors are Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, FHA (HUD), VA, and USDA Rural Development.
Federal tax credits
There is no ADU-specific federal tax credit. ADUs may incidentally qualify for existing federal energy-efficiency and clean-energy tax credits when the ADU construction includes qualifying measures.
Federal housing programs
HUD administers several discretionary programs that can fund ADU-related activity at the grantee's election, but none is an ADU-specific program.
ZIP Code
- 22924
Post Office
- 6620 Plank Rd, 22924