ADU Pass
Smithfield
No County portion
Also in: Isle of Wight County
ADU Pass helps homeowners in Smithfield, 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
Inside the corporate limits, Town of Smithfield zoning controls; the historic district overlay adds Architectural Review Board scrutiny. The Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act applies countywide along the Pagan River. SB531 will bind the town ordinance separately from the county at 2027-07-01.
Cost scenarios
Permitting process
Viability (permitted uses)
- Long-term rental: with-restrictions Permitted in town residential districts subject to accessory-dwelling standards; SB531 by-right relief at 2027-07-01 for non-grandfathered scenarios.
- Short-term rental: with-restrictions Town of Smithfield regulates STRs separately; historic-town tourism and proximity to Hampton Roads create real demand. STR registration and transient occupancy tax apply.
- Office rental: unclear Office rental of an accessory dwelling typically requires conditional-use approval in residential districts.
- Home office: with-restrictions Home occupations permitted under standard town accessory-use conditions.
- Studio / workshop: yes Personal studio use is a normal accessory use in residential districts.
- Agriculture: with-restrictions Inside town limits, agricultural accessory uses are tightly restricted; outside in unincorporated county RAC, they are routine.
- Relative support: yes Family-occupancy accessory dwelling is the canonical use case under town accessory-dwelling provisions.
Contacts
Utilities
- Water: Town of Smithfield Department of Public Works (public water inside corporate limits)
- Sewer: Town of Smithfield Department of Public Works (public sanitary sewer inside corporate limits)
- Electric: Dominion Energy Virginia
- Gas: Virginia Natural Gas (Smithfield area)
Property values & taxes
Construction timeline
Modular pathway Virginia Industrialized Building Safety Law (IBSL)
Smithfield is accessed via US-258 and VA-10 from the Hampton Roads corridor; the James River Bridge connects to Newport News. Modular delivery is feasible from the Hampton Roads side but the historic-district side streets have narrow rights-of-way and overhead-utility constraints.
Insurance impact
Flood insurance required where parcel is in SFHA along the Pagan River; tidewater wind-and-hail premiums elevated relative to inland Virginia.
HOA prevalence & preemption
Historic district parcels have no HOA but face Architectural Review Board oversight. Newer subdivisions east and south of the historic core (Cypress Creek, Smithfield Plantation) carry HOA covenants with architectural review.
Regulatory overlays (3)
- historic-district
The historic district covers much of downtown Smithfield and adjacent residential blocks. Accessory dwellings inside the district require a Certificate of Appropriateness from the Smithfield Architectural Review Board. The town's historic preservation ethos is anchored by the 1750-era Old Courthouse and surrounding Federal / colonial-revival blocks. - wetland-overlay
Pagan River shoreline-adjacent parcels in Smithfield are inside the 100-ft RPA buffer; new construction inside the buffer is tightly restricted under the town's CBPA ordinance. - flood-zone
Portions of downtown Smithfield along the Pagan River are in FEMA AE Special Flood Hazard Areas with finished-floor elevation requirements.
Technical envelope (climate & building code)
Climate & energy code
Building code
Legal history (timeline)
Current ordinance: Town of Smithfield Zoning Ordinance
- 1988-06-21 — Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act enacted (state-law)
Statewide tidewater shoreline-protection regime requiring 100-ft RPA buffers along tidal waters.
Effect: Limits accessory-dwelling siting on Pagan River shoreline-adjacent parcels within Smithfield. - 2026-01-01 — Virginia SB531 - grandfather date (state-law)
Localities with ADU ordinances adopted before January 1, 2026 are grandfathered.
Effect: Town of Smithfield's existing accessory-dwelling provisions are grandfathered. - 2026-04-14 — Virginia SB531 enacted (state-law)
Statewide by-right ADU mandate, $500 permit-fee cap, effective July 1, 2027.
Effect: Binds Town of Smithfield ordinance and Isle of Wight County ordinance separately at the effective date.
Known issues (2)
- policy-review — Virginia SB531 (effective 2027-07-01) binds the Town of Smithfield ordinance separately from Isle of Wight County; both must conform their accessory-dwelling rules in non-grandfathered scenarios. (source)
- other — Smithfield Architectural Review Board approval is the binding constraint for historic-district parcels and adds 4-12 weeks to the timeline even when zoning is favorable. (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
- 23431
Post Office
- 234 Main St, 23430