City of Norfolk Zoning Ordinance: Districts, Permits & Variances

The Norfolk zoning ordinance, adopted by City Council in January 2018 and effective March 1 of that year, is the rulebook that determines what you can build on any parcel in the city, what you can use it for, and how large, tall, or close to the property line the structure can be.¹ It replaced decades-old regulations and was written to address flood resilience, housing density, and mixed-use development. Before you plan any project, the first step is finding your parcel’s district on the official zoning map, because almost every rule that follows depends on it.

Zoning Districts and How to Find Yours

The ordinance divides the entire city into districts shown on an official map maintained by the Norfolk Department of City Planning.² The main categories are:

Single-family residential districts R-8 through R-15, where the number roughly corresponds to the minimum lot width in feet. Lower numbers permit denser development on narrower lots.
Commercial districts such as C-4 (Large Scale Commercial) for retail, office, and service uses.
Transit-oriented development, including the TOD-S district, which encourages walkable, higher-density projects near transit.
Downtown districts such as D-4 (Downtown Arts and Design), which reflect the mixed-use character of the city center.
Special purpose districts such as East Beach Harbor (EBH), which address particular architectural and environmental needs along the waterfront.
Overlay districts, which add requirements on top of the base zoning. The 35th Street Pedestrian Commercial Overlay and the Coastal Resilience Overlay are examples.

The point of separating land this way is to keep incompatible activities apart while still allowing flexibility in areas designed for mixed use. Look up your parcel’s designation before anything else; it decides what questions you even need to ask.

What You Can Build and How You Can Use It

Within each district, use tables list every land use category and mark it one of three ways for that district.³

Permitted by right (P). You can proceed as long as your project meets all other requirements. No public hearing needed.
Conditional use permit required (C). The use is possible only after you apply for and receive a conditional use permit, which involves a more involved review and typically a public hearing.
Blank cell. The use is prohibited in that district.

Even a permitted use has to satisfy performance standards covering things like noise, hours of operation, and other operating conditions.³

Accessory Dwelling Units

Norfolk allows accessory dwelling units on residential lots, but under tight limits. An ADU can be no larger than 500 square feet or 25 percent of the main home’s floor area, whichever is smaller. It must share the same driveway as the principal dwelling, its utilities have to tie into the existing home’s systems, and one additional parking space is required. In the city’s least-dense residential districts, ADUs are permitted by right. In other residential zones, a conditional use permit is required. As of early 2025, the city has been considering loosening these requirements to allow larger ADUs in more districts by right, so check the current ordinance text before starting.

Dimensional and Site Development Standards

Beyond use, the ordinance controls the physical shape of development: how tall a building can be, how far it must sit from property lines, how much of the lot it can cover, and how much open space must remain. These standards vary by district. Setbacks keep structures from crowding each other. Height limits protect sight lines and ensure sunlight reaches neighboring properties. Lot coverage ratios keep buildings from consuming an entire parcel and overwhelming stormwater systems.

Site standards also address the area around the building. Landscaping and buffering requirements apply wherever a more intensive use borders a less intensive one. Parking minimums are calculated based on the type and intensity of the proposed use. Signage rules control size, placement, and illumination. Every new construction or major renovation must meet these standards before a permit is issued.

Fence Rules

In residential districts and historic or cultural conservation districts, fences in side and rear yards are limited to six feet.⁴ Front-yard fences face stricter height limits to preserve street visibility. Corner lots carry additional restrictions near the intersection to maintain sight lines for drivers and pedestrians. The city’s fence brochure spells out the specific measurements by yard type and district.

The Coastal Resilience Overlay

Norfolk floods, and the ordinance reflects that. The Coastal Resilience Overlay (CRO) zone applies to properties within the one-percent annual chance flood zone and imposes construction requirements that go well beyond federal minimums. Structures being built or substantially renovated in the CRO zone must be elevated at least three feet above the base flood elevation, a freeboard requirement two feet higher than the city’s previous rule.⁵

The overlay also bans basements, requires electrical systems to be raised at least one foot above the finished floor elevation, and mandates that all landscaping use native, salt-tolerant plants. Open space must be preserved on the site, and paved parking is limited to reduce stormwater runoff.⁵ None of these are optional. If your property is in the overlay, every one of them applies on top of the base district’s rules. Confirm on the official map whether the CRO reaches your parcel before drawing up plans anywhere near the waterfront or in a low-lying area.

Applying for Zoning Approval

Every development project starts with a zoning review. Applications are available through the Norfolk Department of City Planning.⁶ At minimum you’ll need a completed application, a site plan drawn to scale showing building placement and parking, and a legal description of the property from a recent survey.

One detail that trips people up: Norfolk no longer accepts paper site plan submissions. All plans must be submitted digitally through a shared drive or Dropbox link. Minor revisions of three or fewer sheets can go in as updated sheets with changes clearly marked. Revisions touching four or more sheets are treated as a new submission.⁷

Fees are due at submission and vary by application type and complexity. The city publishes a schedule online.⁸ Budget for a professional boundary survey as well if you don’t already have a recent one.

How Long Review Takes

Straightforward projects that comply with all requirements get an administrative review and a zoning certificate without a public hearing, usually within a few weeks. A conditional use permit involves the Planning Commission and often City Council, with public hearings, and can stretch to several months. A rezoning, which changes the district designation itself, is a legislative process with multiple public hearings before both the Planning Commission and City Council.

When You Can’t Comply: Variances and Appeals

Sometimes a specific standard, like a setback or height limit, blocks a project and the ordinance offers no built-in exception. A variance is permission to deviate from that standard without changing the overall zoning of the property.

Norfolk’s Board of Zoning Appeals hears two kinds of cases: appeals from decisions of the zoning administrator, and variance requests. A variance application requires the form, a scaled site plan, and a check or money order for the filing fee. The BZA works on a 60-day timeline from application to decision.⁹

Getting a variance is not automatic. Under Virginia law, you must show that strict application of the ordinance would unreasonably restrict your use of the property, or that the variance would relieve a hardship caused by the property’s physical condition at the time the ordinance took effect. The BZA also considers whether the hardship was self-created, whether granting the variance would harm neighboring properties, and whether relief could be reached through another route such as a special use permit or ordinance amendment. You or your representative must appear at the public hearing in person.

Nonconforming Uses and Structures

If your property was legally used for a certain purpose before the 2018 ordinance took effect, and that use is now prohibited or falls short of current standards, it’s “nonconforming.” You don’t have to stop using it. Under Virginia law, a nonconforming use can continue as long as it isn’t abandoned for more than two years and the building is maintained in its existing structural condition.¹⁰

Two consecutive years of stopping the use forfeits the right to resume it. You generally cannot expand a nonconforming use or enlarge a nonconforming structure, and substantially altering the building can trigger a requirement that the entire property come into compliance with current zoning. Virginia law also protects owners who built in good faith under a valid building permit, who incurred major expenses in reliance on a permit, or who have paid local property taxes on a structure for more than 15 years; in those cases the city cannot declare the structure illegal and order removal on the nonconformity alone.¹⁰

Federal Limits on the City’s Zoning Power

Several federal laws restrict what Norfolk can do with its zoning, and they matter if a project falls into a protected category.

The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act bars local governments from using zoning to impose a substantial burden on religious exercise unless the restriction is the least restrictive means of advancing a compelling government interest. It also prevents the city from treating religious organizations worse than comparable nonreligious groups, discriminating by denomination, excluding religious assemblies from the city entirely, or unreasonably limiting where they can locate. Both the Department of Justice and private religious institutions can enforce the statute in court.¹¹

The federal Fair Housing Act requires the city to grant reasonable accommodations to zoning rules when someone with a disability needs a modification for equal opportunity to use and enjoy their home. A ramp that encroaches on a setback or a group home that exceeds an occupancy limit are the kinds of requests the city must consider, so long as the accommodation wouldn’t impose an undue burden or undermine the fundamental purpose of the regulation.

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 limits how far the city can go in regulating cell towers and other wireless facilities. Norfolk cannot impose stricter radio frequency emission limits than the FCC’s, and it cannot deny a tower permit based solely on radio frequency environmental concerns within FCC guidelines.

Penalties for Violations

Consequences for zoning violations escalate quickly. When the city identifies a violation, it issues a notice giving you a deadline to correct the problem. Ignoring the notice can result in penalties of up to $2,500 per day and up to 12 months in jail.¹² The city can also abate the violation itself and bill you; unpaid abatement costs can become a lien on the property.

The per-day structure matters. A violation that persists for weeks while you dispute it can generate a bill far larger than the cost of the fix. If you believe a notice was issued in error, the route is an appeal to the Board of Zoning Appeals, not silence.⁹

1
Municode Library. Code of the City of Norfolk, Virginia – Zoning Ordinance
2
City of Norfolk. Norfolk Zoning Ordinance Rewrite
3
City of Norfolk, Virginia. Norfolk Zoning Ordinance Use Tables
4
City of Norfolk, Virginia. Fence Regulations
5
NOAA Digital Coast. Zoning Ordinance Overhauled to Increase Community Resilience to Flooding
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City of Norfolk, Virginia. Land Use Applications and Forms
7
City of Norfolk, Virginia. Site Plan Review
8
City of Norfolk, Virginia. Permits and Fees
9
City of Norfolk, Virginia. Board of Zoning Appeals
10
Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code 15.2-2307 – Vested Rights Not Impaired; Nonconforming Uses
11
Civil Rights Division. Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act
12
City of Norfolk, Virginia. Code Enforcement