Can I put a manufactured home on land here?

The statute tells a zoned locality where manufactured homes have to be allowed. Its requirements come in four parts.

• Agricultural districts. In agricultural zoning districts, or districts with a similar classification under any name, where agricultural, horticultural or forest uses are the dominant use and site-built housing is allowed, placement of manufactured homes must be permitted.
• Other districts that allow houses. Placement must be permitted for homes that are converted to real property, constructed so the certificate of occupancy issues within five years of the manufacture date on the data plate, and placed on individual lots.
• No stricter treatment. A locality may not adopt or enforce a zoning, land-use or development regulation that treats manufactured homes differently or more restrictively than a single-family site-built dwelling allowed in the same district. That subsection does not limit local historic-district and historic-resource ordinances.
• Uniform standards. A zoned locality may adopt uniform standards that apply to all residential structures in a district, but those standards may not have the effect of excluding manufactured housing built in compliance with the Virginia Manufactured Housing Construction and Safety Standards Law.

The same body of law protects an existing home in one more way: under Va. Code 15.2-2307, the owner of a valid nonconforming manufactured home that is not in a park may replace it with a newer manufactured home, single- or multi-section, that meets the current HUD manufactured housing code.

Va. Code 36-85.3, in the Virginia Manufactured Housing Construction and Safety Standards Law, defines a manufactured home as a structure subject to federal regulation, transportable in one or more sections, built on a permanent chassis, eight body feet or more wide and forty body feet or more long in traveling mode or 320 or more square feet when erected on site, and designed to be used as a single-family dwelling, with or without a permanent foundation, when connected to the required utilities. Whether a home already on the ground is still titled or has become part of the real estate is a different question, answered in selling a manufactured home with the land.

An unzoned county still has rules for a manufactured home; they sit in a different book. The wider point, that no zoning is not the same as no regulation, is argued in what unzoned means for a commercial buyer. Each of the three counties draws its own lines.

Carroll's park ordinance and its family placements

The Manufactured Home Park Ordinance of Carroll County covers both parks and the placement of individual homes, and its articles apply to manufactured home spaces made for an owner's individual use. The county defines a manufactured home park as an area or tract designed, constructed and equipped to accommodate two or more manufactured homes. The same posted ordinance then carves out family placements:

For the purpose of this ordinance an individual placing one or more manufactured homes on his property for use by members of his immediate family shall not constitute a manufactured home park.

Manufactured Home Park Ordinance of Carroll County (2012 posted text)

Article 15 of the ordinance applies to those family placements. It lets the Board of Supervisors set a placement fee, and an owner who moves a home into the county for use rather than for sale notifies the Commissioner of Revenue within ten days. Whether a particular placement fits the family language is a question for Carroll County Land Use and Planning and the building official, and more than one dwelling on a parcel raises the questions in building a second house on your land.

Wythe's plan summary and its permit question

The county's comprehensive plan summarizes a 2002 manufactured home ordinance covering parks and individual homes, with a minimum lot of 6,000 square feet and 60 feet wide and a minimum setback of 35 feet from a public road. That is the plan's summary, and the Wythe County Planning Department holds the ordinance text. The building permit asks how many manufactured homes will be occupied on the total acreage, so the county can apply the Mobile Home Park Ordinance of Wythe County, and the county's setup steps include well and septic permits from the Health Department and skirting within 60 days of occupancy.

Floyd's pre-1976 ban and its three-home park rule

A 2003 ordinance prohibits bringing into or placing in the county any mobile or manufactured home that is not HUD approved or was manufactured in 1976 or earlier, and no building permit may issue to locate one. A home of that kind that was already in the county when the ordinance was adopted may remain, but may not be moved or relocated within the county. Separately, the Floyd County Manufactured Home Park Ordinance, which excludes the Town of Floyd, addresses a parcel under single or common ownership on which three or more manufactured homes are parked.