Does Floyd County have zoning?
No. Floyd County does not zone, and the county's list of its own ordinances includes no zoning ordinance. Since January 1, 2026, the Land Division Ordinance, adopted November 18, 2025, has been the main county rule on how land is divided, requiring a preliminary plat for every division. The Town of Floyd is the exception: it has its own zoning ordinance, which applies inside the town.
Adopted November 18, 2025, in force January 1, 2026: Floyd's division rule is new
Two dates frame land rules in Floyd County now. The county's Land Division Ordinance was adopted on November 18, 2025 and took effect on January 1, 2026, and it is the document that answers most questions a landowner brings about dividing Floyd ground. It is not a zoning ordinance.
The county's own ordinances page makes that plain by what it lists: a manufactured home park ordinance, a solid waste ordinance, an ordinance prohibiting pre-1976 manufactured homes, and the Land Division Ordinance. No zoning ordinance appears. The Economic Development Authority of Floyd County states it directly on its website: "There is no zoning" in the county.
That is a choice Virginia law leaves to each county. Va. Code 15.2-2280 says a locality may classify its territory into zoning districts; Va. Code 15.2-2240 says every locality shall adopt a subdivision ordinance. Floyd has taken the required step and not the optional one. How the two kinds of county differ in general is covered in zoning versus no zoning, and the term itself in the glossary entry for unzoned land.
Before the new ordinance, Floyd's comprehensive plan described a county run on division rules alone
To see what the 2026 ordinance changed and what it did not, start with how Floyd's comprehensive plan described the county's tools. The plan the county posts predates the new ordinance and carries no adoption date in its text, so read it as a description of the rules before 2026.
The plan calls the subdivision ordinance the county's primary regulatory mechanism for property development, and says that, in general, it is a limited tool that does not determine use. It adds that zoning is used in most Virginia localities to guide use and density, and that a subdivision ordinance cannot limit the number of parcels created from a parent tract as long as each new parcel meets a specific standard.
It goes further on use. The plan says any type of use can occur on any parcel of land in Floyd County as determined by the buyer, the only exception being parcels with conservation or scenic easements, and that any number of residences can be built on a single parcel, which it notes has occurred and poses challenges for the provision of services.
Under the Land Division Ordinance, a preliminary plat comes first for every division
Under the 2026 ordinance the procedure starts before any division is recorded, and it applies to small divisions as well as large ones.
The Land Division Ordinance requires a preliminary plat for all proposed divisions and lot line revisions. The county's Agent has 40 days to review and act on one after accepting a complete application. When and why a county can require that step, and how long an approval lasts, are covered in what a preliminary plat is.
The ordinance is just as clear about what it leaves alone: it bears no relation to private covenants recorded with a division plat, and no public official is responsible for enforcing a private contract, though the ordinance controls where it is the stricter rule. Who does enforce them is set out in who enforces restrictive covenants.
It calls for a property owners' association only where a division has shared features, private division roads and common areas among them. When a new subdivision elsewhere in the footprint has to form an association, and when it does not, is set out in whether a new subdivision needs an HOA.
Setbacks through the building permit, and a 2003 rule on older manufactured homes, still apply
Some of what a zoning ordinance would handle elsewhere, Floyd handles through its building permit and through ordinances older than the division rule.
Without zoning districts, the distances from the road and the property lines come through the building permit. The county's Building Inspections page lists a setback of 35 feet from the edge of roadways, state-maintained and private, 60 feet from the center of the road, and, for residential construction only, 5 feet from structures and property lines. How those distances compare with the neighboring counties, and where each is measured, is on the page about how close to the property line you can build.
Manufactured homes have their own rules: an ordinance adopted May 13, 2003 bars bringing in or placing homes that are not HUD approved or were manufactured in 1976 or earlier, and the county's Manufactured Home Park Ordinance, which excludes the Town of Floyd, addresses parcels with three or more manufactured homes and treats a parcel that had three or more at its effective date as an existing park. What each rule means for a particular home is covered in whether you can put a manufactured home on land here.
Cross into the Town of Floyd and a zoning ordinance applies
The no-zoning answer stops at the town line. The Town of Floyd has its own zoning ordinance, ordained by its Town Council as the Town of Floyd Zoning Ordinance; the posted text is from 2020.
For a parcel inside the town, the Town of Floyd office is the place to ask which district applies and what it allows. For a parcel in the county, start with Floyd County Planning, which is also the office to ask whether anything has changed since this page was written. Where Floyd sits alongside the other five counties and Galax, zoned and unzoned, is on the six counties page.
Weighing a Floyd County parcel under the new division rules?
Send the road and the acreage, and Lowell will lay out what the Land Division Ordinance, the building permit and the manufactured home rules mean for that Floyd County parcel. No cost, no obligation.
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Questions this raises
Did the Land Division Ordinance bring zoning to Floyd County?
No. The Land Division Ordinance, effective January 1, 2026, governs how land is divided: preliminary plats, lot standards, roads and associations for shared features. It does not create zoning districts or a list of permitted uses. Floyd County's ordinances page lists it alongside the manufactured home and solid waste ordinances, and lists no zoning ordinance.
Can a conservation or scenic easement limit how Floyd land is used even though the county has no zoning?
Yes. Floyd's comprehensive plan names parcels with conservation or scenic easements as the one exception to its observation that any type of use can occur on any parcel as the buyer determines. The limits come from the recorded easement itself, not from a county district. What a particular easement allows is in its recorded terms, and reading them is an attorney's work.
Where this page's facts come from
Every rule, office and figure above traces to one of these. Rules change; check the office before you act on one.
- Land Division Ordinance, adopted November 18, 2025, effective January 1, 2026 Floyd County, Virginia
- Code of Ordinances (no zoning ordinance is listed) Floyd County, Virginia
- Comprehensive Plan (the subdivision ordinance as the primary regulatory mechanism) Floyd County, Virginia
- Building Inspections (setbacks) Floyd County, Virginia
- Ordinance Prohibiting Pre-1976 Manufactured Homes, May 13, 2003 Floyd County, Virginia
- Manufactured Home Park Ordinance Floyd County, Virginia
- Infrastructure projects Economic Development Authority of Floyd County
- Town of Floyd Zoning Ordinance, 2020 text Town of Floyd
- Comprehensive Plan (counties without zoning) Wythe County, Virginia
- 15.2-2280, zoning ordinances (a locality may classify its territory into districts) Code of Virginia
- 15.2-2240, every locality shall adopt a subdivision ordinance Code of Virginia