ADU Pass
Blacksburg
No County portion
Also in: Montgomery County
ADU Pass helps homeowners in Blacksburg, No County, Virginia navigate the permit paperwork for building an accessory dwelling unit. This area covers 2 ZIP codes.
Map
ADU details
ADU legality: allowed-with-restrictions
Blacksburg formally allows accessory apartments since 2017 in specified single-family districts. Annual rental registration, owner-occupancy, and per-unit rental rules apply. Active ordinance revision underway as of 2025-2026.
Cost scenarios
Permitting process
Viability (permitted uses)
- Long-term rental: yes Long-term rental of an accessory apartment is the canonical use case under the 2017 ordinance, subject to annual rental registration and owner-occupancy.
- Short-term rental: with-restrictions Virginia Tech football weekends and parents-weekend traffic drive STR demand; Blacksburg regulates STRs through a separate Town short-term rental ordinance — confirm rules separately. The accessory apartment rule's 'rented BY THE UNIT' language disallows room-by-room STR within an ADU.
- Office rental: unclear Commercial office use of accessory structure typically requires home occupation review or rezoning.
- Home office: with-restrictions Blacksburg permits home occupations under standard conditions.
- Studio / workshop: yes Personal studio use is a normal accessory use.
- Agriculture: no Town residential districts do not permit livestock or significant agricultural accessory uses.
- Relative support: yes Family-occupancy ADU is one of the original named use cases ('in-law apartment, basement apartment, granny flat').
Contacts
Utilities
- Water: Blacksburg-Christiansburg-VPI Water Authority
- Sewer: Blacksburg-VPI Sanitation Authority
- Electric: Appalachian Power (American Electric Power subsidiary)
- Gas: Roanoke Gas Company (natural gas service in the New River Valley)
Property values & taxes
Construction timeline
Modular pathway Virginia Industrialized Building Safety Law (IBSL)
Blacksburg access via US-460 from Roanoke or I-81 exits at Christiansburg; modular delivery into the dense original 16-square town core requires route planning for narrow streets.
Insurance impact
Student-tenant rental in a college town suggests landlord-policy + umbrella coverage are prudent.
HOA prevalence & preemption
Newer Blacksburg subdivisions (especially Foxridge, Hethwood, Stroubles Creek-area developments) have HOAs with varying restrictive covenants; confirm covenants separately from town zoning.
Regulatory overlays (1)
- historic-district
Portions of the original 16-square town grid and the Smithfield Plantation area have historic-overlay scrutiny.
Technical envelope (climate & building code)
Climate & energy code
Building code
Legal history (timeline)
Current ordinance: Town of Blacksburg Code of Ordinances, Appendix A (Zoning) — Accessory Apartment provisions, adopted 2017-07-01
- 2017-07-01 — Town of Blacksburg Accessory Apartment ordinance effective date (city-ordinance)
Town Council approved an amendment to the zoning ordinance allowing accessory apartments with single-family homes in certain zoning districts.
Effect: First formal legalization of ADUs in Blacksburg. Created annual rental-registration requirement and owner-occupancy mandate. - 2022-01-01 — Town of Blacksburg zoning ordinance amendment (Granicus meeting document ID 2471) (city-ordinance)
Council-meeting ordinance amendment referencing accessory-apartment provisions.
Effect: Continuing refinement of the 2017 framework. - 2024-01-01 — Blacksburg Small Lot Residential Ordinance review (Let's Talk Blacksburg) (city-review)
Town-led public-engagement process examining residential lot, density, and accessory-unit rules.
Effect: Inputs to the in-progress revision of the 2017 accessory apartment ordinance. - 2024-07-01 — Virginia HB1832 (2025) — statewide ADU framework, delayed 2026-07-01 effective date (state-law)
By-right ADUs in single-family residential zones statewide; $500 fee cap.
Effect: Will further strengthen Blacksburg's already-permissive framework and likely cap the Town's annual rental-registration fee.
Known issues (2)
- policy-review — Town is actively revising the 2017 accessory apartment ordinance through 2025-2026 (Small Lot Residential Ordinance process); applicants should verify which version of the ordinance will govern their permit timing. (source)
- policy-review — Virginia HB1832 (2026-07-01 effective date) will impose statewide $500 fee cap and may simplify town review. (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 Codes
- 24062
- 24063
Post Office
- 118 N Main St, 24060
- 909 University City Blvd, 24060
Locale Names
- Downtown Blacksburg