ADU Pass
Burke
No County portion
Also in: Fairfax County
ADU Pass helps homeowners in Burke, 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-with-restrictions
Fairfax County has one of Virginia's most developed ALU frameworks. Interior ALUs are administratively approved (no BZA); detached ALUs require Special Permit through the Board of Zoning Appeals. Owner-occupancy of one of the two units required. Burke parcels are typical 1960s-1980s suburban single-family detached residential.
Cost scenarios
Permitting process
Viability (permitted uses)
- Long-term rental: with-restrictions Long-term rental of an ALU is permitted subject to two-occupant max and owner-occupancy of the other unit.
- Short-term rental: no Fairfax County ALU rules require one of the two units to be owner-occupied; ALU is licensed only for the long-term-rental / family-occupancy use case. STR of an ALU is not consistent with the licensing framework.
- Office rental: no ALU is a residential use class; commercial office rental is not a permitted ALU use.
- Home office: with-restrictions Owner may use ALU as a home office subject to Fairfax County home-occupation rules.
- Studio / workshop: yes Personal artist/studio use by the resident is consistent with ALU residential use class.
- Agriculture: no Burke residential districts do not permit livestock or significant agricultural accessory uses.
- Relative support: yes Family-occupancy ALU (elderly parent, adult child) is the canonical use case under the 2021 zMOD framework.
Contacts
Utilities
- Water: Fairfax Water (public water; nearly all Burke parcels)
- Sewer: Fairfax County Wastewater Treatment Division (public sewer)
- Electric: Dominion Energy Virginia
- Gas: Washington Gas
Property values & taxes
Construction timeline
Modular pathway Virginia Industrialized Building Safety Law (IBSL) · inspectors are experienced with modular
Burke access via I-95 / I-395 / VA-123 / Fairfax County Parkway; modular delivery feasible from PA/MD modular factories, but Burke Lake Road and many subdivision streets have overhead clearance / turn-radius limits requiring route survey.
Insurance impact
HOA prevalence & preemption
Burke has high HOA density. Major HOAs include Burke Centre, the Lakes at Burke, and many smaller subdivision associations. Restrictive covenants may prohibit ALU construction independently of Fairfax zoning permission — covenant review is essential.
Technical envelope (climate & building code)
Climate & energy code
Building code
Legal history (timeline)
Current ordinance: Fairfax County Zoning Ordinance § 4102.7.B Accessory Living Unit, adopted 2021-03-23
- 2021-03-23 — Fairfax County Zoning Ordinance Modernization (zMOD) adoption — modernized ALU provisions (county-ordinance)
Comprehensive rewrite of the Fairfax County zoning ordinance including substantial ALU modernization: removed age/disability occupancy requirement, refined administrative vs. Special Permit pathway, set 800 sqft/40% interior and 1,200 sqft detached caps.
Effect: Established the current Burke-applicable ALU framework. Eliminated decades-old restriction that ALU could only be used by someone with a disability or meeting age thresholds. - 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 impose $500 permit fee cap on Fairfax's currently higher fee schedule and may remove Special Permit requirement for detached ALUs. - 2025-12-01 — Fairfax County Land Use Policy Committee — ALU White Paper (county-review)
Department of Planning and Development white paper on ALU performance and proposed adjustments.
Effect: Inputs into ongoing ALU ordinance refinement; may modify size caps or owner-occupancy rules.
Known issues (3)
- policy-review — Fairfax County 2025 ALU White Paper is under Land Use Policy Committee review with potential rule adjustments in 2026. (source)
- policy-review — Virginia HB1832 (2026-07-01 effective date) $500 permit fee cap will affect Fairfax County's currently higher fee schedule. (source)
- other — Burke Centre and other major HOAs in Burke have restrictive covenants that may prohibit ALUs separately from county zoning approval; covenant review is essential. (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
- 22009
Post Office
- 9501 Burke Rd, 22015