Pulaski

Pulaski County permits an 'accessory dwelling' or 'accessory apartment' as a supplementary use to a single-family detached dwelling on parcels of sufficient size in the county's Agricultural (A-1) and primary residential (R-1, R-2) districts, plus the lake-recreation residential districts that apply to Claytor Lake waterfront parcels. The Pulaski framework follows the common Virginia rural-county pattern with some lake-recreation-specific tailoring for Claytor Lake parcels: one ADU per parcel; the ADU must be clearly accessory (subordinate in size and use) to a principal single-family dwelling; a base size cap typically in the 800-1,200 square-foot range with potentially larger caps available on qualifying agricultural parcels; configuration options including attached, interior-conversion, and detached on most rural and lake parcels; the ADU must meet the principal-dwelling setbacks for the underlying district rather than reduced accessory-structure setbacks; and the ADU cannot be subdivided off or sold separately from the principal dwelling. Claytor Lake waterfront parcels face additional constraints from the lake's regulated-shoreline framework administered by Appalachian Power Company under FERC license terms — the lake is a hydroelectric reservoir, and shoreline construction requires APCo permitting separate from county zoning. Because Virginia has no statewide ADU preemption (see state file stateAduLaw, citing Va. Code § 15.2-2280 et seq. as the local-zoning enabling statute), Pulaski's ordinance is the authoritative regime on every parcel in the unincorporated county; parcels inside the Town of Pulaski or the Town of Dublin follow those towns' own ordinances instead.

Pulaski County administers an overlay portfolio shaped by its mixed mountain / valley / lake-recreation geography: (1) the Floodplain Overlay District tied to FEMA-mapped Special Flood Hazard Areas along the New River, Peak Creek, Little River, Reed Creek, and interior streams (with the Claytor Lake elevation regulated by APCo's Claytor Dam, so lake-elevation flooding is largely controlled but tributary flooding into Peak Creek and similar streams remains a risk); (2) Appalachian Power Company Claytor Hydroelectric Project shoreline-management overlay — APCo holds a FERC license to operate Claytor Hydro and regulates the shoreline of Claytor Lake (approximately 100 miles of shoreline) under a published Shoreline Management Plan; (3) Jefferson National Forest proximity in the southern county, where the National Forest boundary creates shared-boundary issues for adjacent private parcels; (4) historic-resource sensitivity at the Town of Pulaski historic district, the Newbern Historic District (a National Register district covering the early-19th-century western-Virginia community of Newbern, the original county seat), and individual scattered National Register properties; (5) Volvo Trucks New River Valley Plant industrial overlay in Dublin — the plant footprint and its associated industrial zoning shape the Dublin-area land-use pattern and constrain ADU eligibility on adjacent industrial parcels. Pulaski is NOT a Tidewater Chesapeake Bay Preservation Area locality — Pulaski sits in the Appalachian Plateau / New River Valley, well west of Tidewater. The New River drains north and west into West Virginia and ultimately into the Ohio / Mississippi system, not the Chesapeake. Pulaski has no coastal-commission jurisdiction, no CalFire-equivalent WUI regime, and no seismic-retrofit overlay.

• Floodplain Overlay District
• Appalachian Power Company Claytor Hydroelectric Project Shoreline Management Plan
• Town of Pulaski Historic District / Newbern Historic District / Pulaski County historic resources
• Jefferson National Forest proximity (southern Pulaski County)

The Pulaski County Department of Community Development issues residential building permits for every parcel in the unincorporated county. Parcels inside the Town of Pulaski or the Town of Dublin route through those towns' own permitting instead. An ADU permit bundle on an unincorporated-county parcel typically includes: (1) a Zoning Compliance verification / Zoning Permit confirming the ADU meets the supplementary-regulation standards (size cap, one-per-parcel, principal-dwelling setbacks, district eligibility, plus lake-recreation-district-specific rules for Claytor Lake parcels), (2) a Building Permit with stamped plans, (3) trade permits for Electrical, Plumbing, and Mechanical filed by licensed Virginia contractors, (4) a Virginia Department of Health construction permit for well and/or septic on parcels not served by the Pulaski County PSA, (5) a Floodplain Development Permit if any portion of the parcel is within a FEMA-mapped Special Flood Hazard Area along the New River, Peak Creek, Little River, Reed Creek, or other interior streams, (6) for Claytor Lake waterfront parcels, an Appalachian Power Company shoreline-development permit under the FERC-licensed Claytor Hydroelectric Project Shoreline Management Plan — APCo regulates docks, retaining walls, shoreline grading, and any structure within the project boundary regardless of county zoning, and (7) for parcels along the Jefferson National Forest boundary in the southern county, possible coordination with US Forest Service for shared-boundary issues.