Richmond County

Richmond County's Building and Land Use Office handles zoning permits, Special Use Permits, site plan review, subdivision review, Chesapeake Bay Preservation District administration, and building-permit issuance and inspection for every parcel in the county except those inside the Town of Warsaw (which administers its own zoning and permitting) and state/federal land. A typical ADU-like permit bundle (where a second dwelling is permitted) includes: (1) a Special Use Permit from the Board of Supervisors with Planning Commission recommendation, unless the parcel qualifies for an A-1 family-member or farm-labor dwelling allowance, (2) a Zoning Permit confirming use compliance and district setback compliance, (3) a Building Permit with stamped residential plans, (4) Electrical, Plumbing, and Mechanical trade permits, (5) a Virginia Department of Health (VDH) - Three Rivers Health District construction permit for well and/or septic on parcels not served by public water or sewer (which is the great majority of parcels — public sewer is essentially limited to the Town of Warsaw service area), (6) a Floodplain Development Permit if any portion of the parcel intersects the mapped Special Flood Hazard Area, which applies to a substantial fraction of parcels along the Rappahannock River frontage and tidal creeks, (7) a Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act review — Richmond County IS a Tidewater locality subject to the CBPA, with Resource Protection Area (RPA) and Resource Management Area (RMA) rules applying across the county, (8) a Virginia Marine Resources Commission (VMRC) joint permit for any work below mean high water or encroaching on tidal wetlands, (9) US Army Corps of Engineers permit where federal waters are involved.

Richmond County real estate is assessed by the Office of the Commissioner of the Revenue working with the Real Estate Assessment Office. Richmond County operates on a periodic general-reassessment cycle under Va. Code § 58.1-3252; the county historically uses a multi-year cycle with reassessments typically contracted to an outside assessment firm. An ADU or second-dwelling addition is captured through the supplemental real-estate-improvement process under Va. Code § 58.1-3292: the Commissioner of the Revenue receives the building-permit record and Certificate of Occupancy from Building and Land Use, and the Real Estate Assessment Office adds the ADU's assessed value to the parcel's land and improvement base, prorated to the completion date. The primary dwelling is NOT re-valued off-cycle as a result of the ADU addition.

Assessment policy: An ADU is captured as a real-estate improvement under Va. Code Title 58.1 Subtitle III Chapter 32. On receipt of the building permit and (later) the Certificate of Occupancy from Building and Land Use, the Real Estate Assessment Office prorates the supplemental assessment from the completion date through the end of the tax year under Va. Code § 58.1-3292. The ADU is added at its assessed fair-market value (typically derived from cost approach using Marshall & Swift residential cost multipliers calibrated to the current reassessment-cycle base) on top of the parcel's existing land and improvement value; the existing primary dwelling is NOT revalued off-cycle. There is no Richmond-County-specific ADU assessment exemption. Standard Virginia real-estate tax relief programs (elderly and disabled relief under Va. Code § 58.1-3210 as adopted locally, disabled-veteran exemption under Va. Code § 58.1-3219.5) apply to the homeowner's principal residence. Land Use Assessment under Va. Code § 58.1-3229 et seq. is locally adopted and consequential — Richmond County has substantial agricultural and silvicultural land in active use-value enrollment, and the ADU's parcel impact on that enrollment should be evaluated case-by-case.

Richmond County administers several overlay regimes that bear materially on ADU projects, with coastal / tidal exposure being the dominant physical constraint along the Rappahannock River frontage. The relevant overlays are: (1) a Floodplain Overlay District tied to FEMA Special Flood Hazard Areas, which covers a meaningful share of waterfront and tidal-creek-adjacent parcels along the Rappahannock and its tributaries; (2) Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act jurisdiction across the entire county (Richmond is a Tidewater locality designated under Va. Code § 62.1-44.15:67 et seq.), with Resource Protection Area (RPA) buffers of 100 feet from perennial water bodies and tidal wetlands and Resource Management Area (RMA) coverage on much of the remaining land; (3) Virginia Marine Resources Commission (VMRC) tidal-wetlands and subaqueous-bottom jurisdiction reaching any project touching tidal waters or wetlands along the Rappahannock; (4) NRHP-listed historic resources scattered across the county including the Menokin plantation (the home of Francis Lightfoot Lee, signer of the Declaration of Independence, NRHP-listed) and other colonial-era plantations and village cores; the Town of Warsaw maintains its own historic-preservation posture. Richmond County has NO California-style coastal commission, NO CalFire-equivalent WUI regulatory overlay, and NO seismic-retrofit overlay.

• Floodplain Overlay District
• Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act (CBPA) Resource Protection Area and Resource Management Area
• Virginia Marine Resources Commission (VMRC) tidal-wetlands and subaqueous-bottom jurisdiction
• Menokin, NRHP-listed plantations, and Town of Warsaw historic resources