Subdivision ordinance
A subdivision ordinance is the local law that governs how land in a Virginia locality is divided into lots and developed. The governing body of every locality must adopt one, unlike a zoning ordinance, which a locality may choose never to adopt.
Every governing body must adopt one, whether or not it zones
Virginia leaves zoning to each locality's choice. It does not leave this, and the Code says so in a single sentence:
The governing body of every locality shall adopt an ordinance to assure the orderly subdivision of land and its development.
Va. Code 15.2-2240
Zoning sorts land into districts with rules on use and placement; a subdivision ordinance governs the act of dividing it. A county can have the second without the first, and Carroll, Wythe and Floyd counties do.
Where a county has no zoning, the subdivision ordinance does more of the regulating. Va. Code 15.2-2255 makes the governing body responsible for administering and enforcing the subdivision regulations, through its local planning commission or otherwise.
What the Code makes every ordinance provide for
Va. Code 15.2-2241 opens its list with "A subdivision ordinance shall include reasonable regulations and provisions that apply to or provide:" and among the items that follow are these:
- coordination of streets in and next to the subdivision with other streets in the area, as to location, widths, grades and drainage;
- adequate provisions for drainage and flood control, and for identifying soil characteristics;
- the extent and manner in which streets are graded, graveled or otherwise improved, and how water, sewer and other public utilities are installed;
- monuments of specific types establishing street and property lines;
- reasonable provisions permitting a single division of a lot or parcel for sale or gift to a member of the owner's immediate family.
Most of those items describe physical work on the tract itself, and the page on land development and feasibility reads the same statute against what a tract can hold. The ordinance also sets the procedure a plat follows, and that sequence, with its review clocks, is laid out in how to subdivide land in Virginia.
Each locality may write its own meaning of subdivision
The Code supplies a default definition of subdivision in Va. Code 15.2-2201, but only "unless otherwise defined in an ordinance". A locality's ordinance can reach further, and in this footprint at least two do: Carroll County's counts any division of a lot or parcel, and Pulaski County's reaches divisions of a tract into two or more lots.
So the same split of one tract can be a subdivision in one county and fall outside the default definition in a locality whose ordinance relies on it. The definitions side by side, whether a particular split counts, and what the Code says about selling a piece before its plat is recorded, are taken up in whether you can sell just part of your land.
A town limit can hand the parcel to a different ordinance
A county ordinance does not always reach every acre in the county. Carroll County's posted ordinance applies to land in the county that is not within the jurisdiction of incorporated municipalities, so a parcel inside the Hillsville town limits is outside it.
A subdivision ordinance also answers a narrower question than people expect. It governs division, streets, drainage, soils, utilities and monuments. Whether a second dwelling can go on one parcel without dividing it is a separate question, taken up in whether you can build a second house on your land.
Not sure which subdivision ordinance governs your parcel?
Tell Lowell the road and whether it sits inside a town limit, and he will point you to the office whose subdivision ordinance reaches it. No cost, no obligation.
Got it. Thank you.
We'll be in touch shortly with an honest read.
Questions about this term
Does a subdivision ordinance decide what I can build on a lot?
It does not decide the use. Floyd County's comprehensive plan describes its subdivision ordinance as a limited tool that does not determine use. An ordinance can still shape where a building sits: in a Carroll County subdivision, the posted ordinance puts no building closer than 35 feet to the adjacent edge of any street or 15 feet to the lot boundary. Where a locality has zoning, its district rules govern use.
Is the planning commission the designated agent that acts on plats?
Not as a rule. Va. Code 15.2-2201 defines the designated agent as the person a locality designates to review and act on subdivision plats, and says the term does not include the local planning commission, though the commission may serve as the designated agent of a locality with a population of 5,000 or less. Carroll County's Land Use and Planning page says a plat must be approved by the Subdivision Agent or the Planning Commission before recording.
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.
- Va. Code 15.2-2240: every locality shall adopt a subdivision ordinance Code of Virginia
- Va. Code 15.2-2241: mandatory provisions of a subdivision ordinance Code of Virginia
- Va. Code 15.2-2201: definitions, including subdivision and designated agent Code of Virginia
- Va. Code 15.2-2255: administration and enforcement of subdivision regulations Code of Virginia
- Subdivision Ordinance of Carroll County, Virginia (posted text amended through April 14, 2014) Carroll County, Virginia
- Land Use and Planning (subdivision and plat review) Carroll County, Virginia
- Unified Development Ordinance, July 2025 Pulaski County, Virginia
- Comprehensive Plan Floyd County, Virginia