Details

Title	Lancaster County, Virginia Zoning Ordinance
Highlights	There is implicit recognition that zoning regulations do not provide for affordable housing.   Lancaster County, Virginia allows home occupations, multifamily housing and manufactured housing parks under certain circumstances.
Description	The Lancaster County, Virginia zoning ordinance contains some provisions that have an impact on affordable housing. The County allows a number of uses in residentially zoned areas that increase housing affordability. Lancaster County allows individual manufactured homes in the R-1 district as long as the structure sets on a permanent masonry foundation, has a roof pitch of 3.25:12 or greater, is at least 24 feet wide and is declared real property. Homes not meeting these requirements are allowed but only with a special exception. The County also allows boarding houses and home occupations. The County allows home occupations as long as members of the family residing on the premises are the only employees and there is not a display of products outside the home (Article 5). Lancaster County also allows multifamily housing under certain conditions. Multifamily housing includes townhouses and condominiums. Some of the requirements included in Article 6 are: a minimum lot size of two acres, above ground structures cannot cover more than 60 percent of the lot, the maximum density cannot exceed three units per acre, and there must be two and one-half off street parking spaces for each dwelling unit. In addition, the board of supervisors must approve every application for R-2 rezoning. The County allows manufactured home parks but only under certain circumstances. The County board must approve each park based on a set of standards outlined in the code. Some of those standards are that the park can only be located in one agricultural district; it must not create excessive additional demand for publicly financed facilities, must contain at least 20 but no more than 50 acres, must have a maximum density of no more than three home per gross acre, must have each home placed on a lot that contains at least 14,283 square feet and has at least 20 percent of the gross land reserved for open space and recreation. Other regulations also apply (Article 20). This site was accessed in April 2004.
Publication Date	2004
Organization	Lancaster County, Virginia
Web Location	http://www.lancova.com/Codes/zoframe.htm

Notice: The contents of this record reflect the views of the author and/or promulgating municipality, and should not be construed as representing the views or policies of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development or U.S. HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research. No attempt has been made by U.S. HUD or its contractors to verify the accuracy, currency, or validity of the record contents presented herein.