Sec. 30.3.11
Dimensional standards
Housing
Servicing
- Applies near
- special flood hazard area
- Geographic extent
- All lands within special flood hazard areas according to the Flood Insurance Rate Map
Uses
Permitted by right7
- agricultural uses
- recreational uses
- flood warning aids and devices
- flood control, stormwater conveyance, or environmental restoration projects
- electric, gas, oil and communications facilities
- water distribution and sewage collection lines
- fences
Conditional / special use8
- sod farming
- topsoil, sand, and gravel removal
- dams, levees and other structures for flood control or public drinking water supply
- engineered structures
- water related uses
- pump stations for water or wastewater
- electrical transmission lines and related towers; microwave and radio-wave transmission and relay towers
- bridges, ferries and culverts not serving single-family dwellings
Prohibited11
- structures accessory to permitted agricultural use
- structures accessory to permitted recreational use
- Tier I and II personal wireless service facilities attached to an existing structure
- Tier III personal wireless service facilities
- grading activities
- structure having habitable space
- storage of gasoline, kerosene and other petroleum products
- storage of flammable liquids, dynamite, blasting caps and other explosives
- storage of pesticides and poisons and other similar materials
- storage of machinery and motor vehicles except as accessory to a use allowed by right or by special use permit
- storage of junk
Extracted standards
8 individual requirements pulled out of this section’s prose, each with the sentence it came from.
Fencing & walls
- Breakaway fence required
Any fence crossing a stream channel that may block passage of floodwaters shall be designed to be a breakaway fence.
Other
- AccessoryAccessory useA secondary activity customarily incidental to the main use of the lot — a garage, a home office. structure varianceVariancePermission to depart from a specific dimensional rule, granted on a showing of hardship.
Accessory structures within the floodplain that are greater than 200 square feet but not greater than 600 square feet must secure a variance before a permit is issued. No variance shall be granted for an accessory structure exceeding 600 square feet.
- Anchoring required
New construction and substantial improvements shall be according to the Virginia Uniform Statewide Building Code, and anchored to prevent flotation, collapse or lateral movement of the structure.
- Encroachment standard in floodway
Any encroachment, including new construction, substantial improvements, fencing crossing a stream channel, or other development, but excluding fill, is prohibited unless the owner demonstrates that the proposed encroachment will not result in any increase in the water surface elevation of the base flood.
- FillGrading (cut & fill)Reshaping land by removing earth (cut) or adding it (fill), often capped by volume. prohibitedProhibitedNot allowed in the district at all, short of rezoning or a variance. in floodway
Fill is prohibited in the regulatory floodway regardless of whether the owner demonstrates that the fill will not result in any increase in the water surface elevation of the base flood.
- Flood opening requirements
There shall be a minimum of two flood openings on different sides of each enclosed area; the total net area of all flood openings shall be at least one square inch for each square foot of enclosed area.
- Lowest floor elevation
Any substantial improvement of any residential building, including any manufactured home, shall have the lowest floor, including the basement, elevated to or above the freeboard elevation.
- Maximum accessoryAccessory useA secondary activity customarily incidental to the main use of the lot — a garage, a home office. structure area200 sqftsq ftSquare feet. An acre is 43,560 sq ft; a typical suburban lot is 7,000–10,000.
Be limited to no more than 200 square feet in total floor area.
From the ordinance
Table of permitted and prohibited uses in the flood hazard overlay district.