ADU Pass
Christiansburg
No County portion
Also in: Montgomery County
ADU Pass helps homeowners in Christiansburg, 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
Christiansburg is an incorporated town in Montgomery County in southwestern Virginia, adjacent to Blacksburg and Virginia Tech. The town allows accessory apartments primarily for caregiver/family use; unrelated-tenant rental requires Special Use Permit. The town zoning code is more restrictive than the surrounding Montgomery County code in this area.
Cost scenarios
| Scenario | Sq ft | Permit | Build | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| minimum | 200 | $1,100 | $54,000 | $55,100 |
| 600 | 600 | $1,300 | $168,000 | $169,300 |
| midpoint | 550 | $1,300 | $154,000 | $155,300 |
| maximum | 900 | $1,400 | $261,000 | $262,400 |
Fee breakdown (as of 2026-05)
Permitting process
Viability (permitted uses)
- Long-term rental: with-restrictions Accessory apartments are intended primarily for caregiver/family use. Long-term rental to unrelated tenants typically requires Special Use Permit.
- Short-term rental: with-restrictions Town of Christiansburg regulates STR; Virginia Tech / Radford athletic-event demand makes Christiansburg an STR market. STR permitting subject to Town requirements.
- Office rental: no Accessory apartment must remain a dwelling unit.
- Home office: yes Home occupation permitted under Town home-occupation standards.
- Studio / workshop: yes Personal artist or workshop use by owner-occupant permitted.
- Agriculture: with-restrictions Limited urban agriculture in residential districts; livestock typically prohibited within town limits.
- Relative support: yes Family-occupancy / caregiver use is the explicit primary purpose of the Town's accessory-apartment provision.
Contacts
Utilities
- Water: Town of Christiansburg Public Works (water) · 21d connect · $3,500
- Sewer: Town of Christiansburg Public Works (sewer for in-town parcels); Montgomery County / private septic outside town sewer service · 28d connect · $4,500
- Electric: Appalachian Power (AEP) · 21d connect · $1,600
- Gas: Roanoke Gas Company (regional natural-gas service) · 28d connect · $1,400
Property values & taxes
Construction timeline
Realistic total: best 6mo · typical 9mo · worst 14mo
Modular pathway inspectors are occasional with modular
I-81 access; tight downtown streets limit module size.
Financing
State ADU loans:
Insurance impact
HOA prevalence & preemption
Older Christiansburg neighborhoods are not HOA-governed; newer subdivisions east and north of downtown (Falling Branch, Sunset Knolls) have HOAs.
Technical envelope (climate & building code)
Climate & energy code
Building code
Amendments:
- Amendment
Contractor market (aggregate)
Legal history (timeline)
Current ordinance: Town of Christiansburg Code Chapter 42 - Zoning, adopted 2014-01-01, last amended 2024-06-01
- 2014-01-01 — Town of Christiansburg Zoning Code Chapter 42 recodification (city-ordinance)
Recodification of the Town's zoning code into Chapter 42 of the Town Code. Established the current accessory-apartment and garage-apartment definitions.
Effect: Codified the family/caregiver-occupancy framework that remains in force. - 2022-01-01 — Town of Christiansburg zoning amendments (housing-options package) (city-ordinance)
Periodic Town Council amendments updating definitions and special-use-permit pathways for accessory apartments and small-scale residential redevelopment.
Effect: Refined administrative review process; did not expand by-right detached-ADU allowance.
Known issues (1)
- other — Tight coupling to Virginia Tech and Radford University demand cycles; ADU economics vary materially between academic and summer-term occupancy.
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
- 24068
Post Office
- 2 E Main St, 24073
- 350 Arbor Dr, 24073
Locale Names
- Downtown Christiansburg