Rolling farmland and mixed hardwood west of Richmond with red clay soil and a wooded creek bottom.
Goochland County One statewide code, no local amendments

Barndominium Builders in Goochland County, VA

Goochland is Richmond's west side and the closest real acreage to the city: 40,711 acres in farms, 151 tracts under 50 acres, and 17.4 percent population growth since 2020. Two things here work in a barndominium's favour and neither is true of the counties either side of it. The zoning ordinance regulates an accessory building's setbacks and nothing else, so the shop may be larger than the house with no ratio to satisfy; and the county's own shrink/swell soil policy writes an exemption for engineered metal light-frame buildings on helical anchors with no footing. Goochland is also one of the counties left out of the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act's statutory list while Henrico, Hanover, Chesterfield and the City of Richmond are all in it, so the 100 percent reserve drainfield that follows a parcel across those county lines does not follow it here. The county publishes its own design criteria, including a ground snow load given as a county map rather than a number.

Goochland County at a glance

County
Goochland County
Population
29,187
ZIP codes
23063, 23103, 23129, 23039, 23153, 23102, 23065, 23038, 23238
Site visits
Same week across the county, from the Route 6 corridor west to Columbia
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Building conditions in Goochland County

The building code itself is the same in every Virginia locality, and no county, city or town may amend it. What changes from one to the next is who issues the permit and inspects the work, what that office charges, how the parcel is zoned, and the Table R301.2 design criteria the locality publishes — the 2021 Virginia Residential Code prints that table blank, with the instruction that additional criteria shall be established by the local jurisdiction. Those local numbers are what your drawings have to satisfy.

Build conditions for Goochland County , Virginia : design wind speed 90 to 105 mph. BUILD CONDITIONS GOOCHLAND COUNTY…Goochland CountyONE STATEWIDE CODEDESIGN WIND SPEED90 to 105 mphGoochland's Design Criteria page publishes 90 to 105 miles per hour as 3-second gusts. Its own FAQpublishes 115 mph, also labelled 3-second gusts, with every other row of the two lists identical.…ZONING · A-1 AGRICULTURAL, GENERAL AND A-2 AG…3 acres on an existing public road…Chapter 15 of the Code of Ordinances, codified through Ordinance No.6471 adopted 6 November 2025. Sections 15-103 and 15-113 set…PERMIT REVIEW CLOCK28 business daysPublished review target of the issuing authorityWHO ISSUES THE PERMITGoochland County Department of Build…The county's published average turnaround is four weeks for aresidential permit and six to eight weeks for a commercial one. Fou… Design criteria are filled in by the jurisdiction under Table R301.2 and are confirmed per parcel before any drawing is sealed.
Build conditions for Goochland County, drawn from the sourced facts on this page. Every figure above is cited in the quick-facts panel below, with its source and vintage.
The shop may be bigger than the house, with no ratio at all
Goochland's rule on accessory buildings is one short paragraph and it sets a setback and nothing else: accessory buildings are allowed in accordance with the setbacks of their district, attached garages and similar are treated as part of the main building and may encroach 3 feet, and no accessory structure may be closer than five feet to any property line. There is no floor-area cap, no percentage of the dwelling, no height limit and no count limit. That is an inversion of both neighbours a Richmond buyer will have just read about: Chesterfield caps accessory buildings in its Rural Community district at 200 percent of the dwelling's floor area, and the City of Richmond will not let one exceed the main house's building area or 20 feet in height.

Goochland County Code of Ordinances sec. 15-285.B, Chapter 15 codified through Ordinance No. 6471 adopted 6 November 2025

An exemption written for engineered metal buildings
Goochland requires a written shrink/swell soil report before it will permit a new dwelling, any addition to a footprint, a detached heavy-frame building over 400 square feet, a detached light-frame building over 600 square feet, or any commercial work. Seven things are exempt, and the seventh is unusually specific: engineered metal light frame structures for undisturbed earth supported and helix anchor design, without a footing. A steel building on helical anchors sitting on undisturbed ground is written out of the requirement by name. Give the same building a conventional footing, or add habitable space so it becomes part of a dwelling, and it is back in.

Goochland County Policies and Procedures, Department of Building Inspection, Policy 01-19 Shrink/Swell Soil Policy, issued 10 September 2024, superseding 3 June 2019; goochlandva.us/DocumentCenter/View/12075

Not a Chesapeake Bay county, and the neighbours are
The Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act applies to a closed statutory list of 29 counties and 17 cities at Va. Code 62.1-44.15:68. Henrico, Hanover, Chesterfield, New Kent and the City of Richmond are all named in it. Goochland is not, and its Code of Ordinances contains no Chesapeake Bay chapter to match. Three things that follow a parcel across those county lines therefore stop at Goochland's: the 100 percent reserve drainfield required on every new-construction lot regardless of soil, the five-yearly septic pump-out, and the Resource Protection Area buffer that bars a new dwelling within 100 feet of a stream with perennial flow. Goochland instead sits under the ordinary statewide rule, where a reserve area of 50 percent is required only where the percolation rate exceeds 45 minutes per inch.

Va. Code 62.1-44.15:68 (Tidewater Virginia definition, as amended 2021 Sp. Sess. I c. 401); 12VAC5-610-710; Goochland County Code of Ordinances chapter list, codified through Ordinance No. 6471

Table R301.2, filled in by the county
The 2021 Virginia Residential Code prints Table R301.2 with em-dashes and leaves the numbers to the locality, so Goochland publishes its own: wind speed 90 to 105 mph as 3-second gusts, seismic design category B, weathering severe, frost depth 18 inches, termite moderate to heavy, winter design temperature 17 degrees, mean annual temperature 56.1 degrees, air freezing index 1500 or less, ice barrier underlayment yes, and rainfall 3.3 inches per hour. The ground snow load row is answered not with a number but with a county snow load map, which is unusual even in Virginia. Flood hazards are answered with a phone number rather than a figure.

Goochland County, Climatic & Geographical Design Criteria, goochlandva.us/182/Design-Criteria, with the snow load map at goochlandva.us/185/Snow-Load-Map

Three acres, not two, on a county road
The A-1 district's statement of intent describes rural by-right residential development at a two-acre minimum lot size, and that sentence is quoted often and is misleading. The district standards table sets the by-right minimum at 3 acres for a lot fronting an existing public road; the 2-acre figure applies only to lots fronting an internal road created within a project. Both agricultural districts are identical on this. Lot area is measured exclusive of road rights-of-way, ponds, lakes and rivers, so on a James River or Tuckahoe Creek parcel the water does not count toward the three acres.

Goochland County Code of Ordinances secs. 15-101, 15-103, 15-111 and 15-113

The shop half is valued at half rate, but it raises the whole rate
Goochland does not charge a permit fee on a contract price. It computes a construction value itself, per square foot, banded by total building size, and the residential building permit is then $30 plus $4.50 per $1,000 of that value above $4,000, plus a 2 percent state levy. Finished space is valued at $55, $65, $75 or $85 per square foot as the building passes 1,500, 3,000 and 5,000 square feet; unfinished space, meaning portions without finished walls, wiring or ducts, is exactly half in every band at $27.50, $32.50, $37.50 and $42.50. The county says plainly that building size is the total of both finished and unfinished areas, so a 2,000 square foot home with a 3,200 square foot attached shop is a 5,200 square foot building and every square foot of it moves into the top band. The shop half is cheap per foot and it pushes the house half's rate up.

Goochland County Department of Building Inspection, How to Calculate Residential Construction Value, goochlandva.us/DocumentCenter/View/116; Code of Ordinances Appendix C Fee Schedule and sec. 12-3

Also worth knowing before you build in Goochland County

Two borings inside the footprint, and what they must report
The report has to come from a Virginia registered professional engineer, certified professional soil scientist or certified professional geologist, and it must include at least two soil borings taken remotely from one another from within the footprint of the proposed structure, drilled to ASTM D 1452. The county says expressly that general soil testing done during subdivision review will not be accepted as a site-specific report. The report must state plasticity index, sand content, moist percentage, Unified Soil Classification System soil type, water table elevation where applicable, and the minimum depth needed to give a net allowable bearing capacity of 2,000 pounds per square foot. A finding of moderate or high forces a site-specific footing and foundation plan sealed by a registered design professional, covering removal of expansive soil, footing depth and width, slab thickness, reinforcement, backfill and drainage for roof, surface and sub-surface moisture.

Goochland County Policy 01-19, Shrink/Swell Soil Policy, sections II and 5 to 9, issued 10 September 2024

Why a uniform code still lets a county do this
Virginia law makes the Uniform Statewide Building Code supersede every local building code and puts the amending power with the Board of Housing and Community Development alone, which raises an obvious question: how do Goochland and Chesterfield both impose a soil-report requirement that most Virginia counties do not? Goochland answers it directly. Asked what enabling authority allows the requirement, the county states that Virginia Residential Code section R401.4 says the building official shall require soils tests to determine if shrink swell soils exist in areas that are likely to have them. That is a delegation inside the uniform code rather than a local amendment of it, which is why two adjacent counties can differ without either one breaking the rule that the code is the same everywhere.

Goochland County Building Inspection, Shrink-Swell FAQs, goochlandva.us, quoting VRC R401.4; Va. Code 36-98 and 36-102

One building or two, and a stove hookup decides it
If the shop shares a roof, a wall or a floor with the living space, it is not an accessory structure at all. The ordinance says a structure must have a five-foot separation from the main building and share no roof, wall or floor to count as detached, and anything attached conforms to the principal building's rules. So a single-roof barndominium is simply a single-family detached dwelling, permitted by right in both agricultural districts. Put the living quarters in a separate shop on a lot that already has a house and it becomes an accessory family housing unit, detached, which is a conditional use here. Where the line actually falls is in the definition of a dwelling unit: rooms designed for living or sleeping that have at least one kitchen, or another room with a stove or an electric or gas hookup for one. A shop with a bathroom, a sink and a bed is not a second dwelling unit. Add a range circuit and it is.

Goochland County Code of Ordinances secs. 15-505.B, 15-500 definitions, 15-102 and 15-112

A second unit is limited by who lives in it, not how big it is
Goochland's accessory family housing unit carries no square-foot or percentage cap at all, which is unusual. What it carries instead is a relationship test: only persons related to a resident of the principal dwelling may live in it, it cannot be rented separately from the principal dwelling, it needs a working smoke detector and carbon monoxide monitor and maintained emergency vehicle access, and before it can be used the owner must file an affidavit with the Goochland County Circuit Court Clerk and give proof of filing to community development, then notify any purchaser in writing before transfer. The detached version needs a conditional use permit in both agricultural districts, at a published $800 plus $50 per dwelling unit or lot. Chesterfield takes the opposite approach next door and caps its equivalent at the smaller of 600 square feet or 40 percent of the house.

Goochland County Code of Ordinances sec. 15-285.A and secs. 15-102 and 15-112 use tables; Appendix C Fee Schedule, Zoning

Ten thousand square feet, not two and a half
A land disturbance permit is required in Goochland once the disturbance reaches 10,000 square feet, and the application takes seven sets of engineered or surveyed plans showing the area of disturbance and the erosion and sediment control measures. Small lots inside a residential development lose the exemption if the development's total disturbance reaches 10,000 square feet. That threshold is four times Chesterfield's, and the difference is entirely the Chesapeake Bay Act: in a Bay Act locality the plan-of-development trigger drops to 2,500 square feet, which a house pad, a shop apron and a gravel turning circle will clear without trying.

Goochland County Code of Ordinances chapter 5, Erosion and Stormwater Management Program, sec. 5-11, Ordinance No. 6103 adopted 2 July 2024; county Environmental FAQs

Clay sizes the drainfield whatever the county line says
Virginia sizes a drainfield at 150 gallons a day per bedroom, with no living-area band and no row for a shop, a garage or a barn however large. And the design percolation rate is normally assigned from soil texture rather than measured in a pit: clay falls in Texture Group IV at 91 minutes per inch or slower, already past the 45-minute threshold that makes a 50 percent reserve area mandatory, and within reach of the 120-minute ceiling beyond which no conventional trench may be placed at all. So being outside the Chesapeake Bay Act removes the automatic 100 percent reserve, but it does not remove the reserve. On a slow Goochland parcel it arrives through the soil instead of through the map, which is a question an evaluation can answer before you buy.

12VAC5-610-490, 12VAC5-610-670 Table 5.1, 12VAC5-610-710 and 12VAC5-610-950

The septic permit is chained to the building permit
Goochland states that a new septic construction permit is issued during the building permit process, and that a building permit must be applied for at Building Inspection before the Health Department will review the septic construction permit. There are two ways in. Hire a private Alternative Onsite Soil Evaluator to determine the location and type and supply engineered septic construction plans with the building permit; those plans are valid 18 months and transfer to a new owner, and the county says using an evaluator may result in faster processing. Or apply for a bare septic application and have the Health Department evaluate the site, which the county will only process if a building permit is also being applied for and the site is for the owner's principal residence. The county also notes that most perc tests for certification letters between buyers and sellers are now done by the private sector. A well permit is valid 54 months.

Goochland County Septic and Well FAQs, goochlandva.us; Goochland Health Department 804-556-5843

Published fees, and the ones that bite
Goochland's fee schedule is codified in Appendix C of the Code of Ordinances rather than left on a departmental page. A residential building permit is $30 for the first $4,000 of computed value and $30 plus $4.50 per $1,000 above it, with a 2 percent state levy on top; residential trade permits are $100 to $10,000 and $100 plus $4.50 per $1,000 above. The initial inspection and the first reinspection are free and every reinspection after that is $100. A commercial or residential plan re-review is $250. Health department processing is $40 for well and septic together or $25 for septic alone. Permit renewal is $50, and a permit expires if work has not begun within six months of issue or is suspended for six months. Building first and asking later costs $100 or 25 percent of the applicable permit fee, whichever is greater, capped at $500.

Goochland County Code of Ordinances Appendix C Fee Schedule (Structures and Addressing sec. 12-3, Water and Sewers sec. 14-191), codified through Ordinance No. 6471 adopted 6 November 2025; Residential Permit Fees PDF, goochlandva.us/DocumentCenter/View/116

An extra 32 cents on the east end
Parcels inside the Tuckahoe Creek Service District pay an ad valorem tax of $0.32 per $100 of assessed value on top of the county real estate rate of $0.53, so $0.85 rather than $0.53. The district was created in 2002 to bring public water and sewer to the county's growth area, funded by $62.7 million of borrowing that the county says will not be paid off until 2042, and the rate has been $0.32 since 2012. Its bounds are the Henrico line on the east, the Hanover line on the north, parts of Hockett Road, Hermitage Road and Rockville Road on the west, and Route 6, Patterson Avenue, on the south. That is the closest land to Richmond and the first part of the county a buyer coming out Broad Street Road reaches. The trade is real rather than a penalty, because it is also the part of the county with public utilities, but it belongs in the arithmetic before an offer. Parcels subdivided out of a district parcel stay in the district.

Goochland County Tax Rates page, goochlandva.us/592/Tax-Rates, and the county's Tuckahoe Creek Service District FAQs

The ZIP is not the jurisdiction, and here that is expensive
Five ZIP areas sit wholly or almost wholly in Goochland: 23063, 23103, 23129, 23039 and 23153. The west-Richmond ones do not. On the Census 2020 relationship file, 23238 is about 57.5 percent Goochland and 23233 only about 27 percent, with most of both falling into Henrico County. That line matters more than usual, because Henrico runs its own building department, publishes 115 mph as an ultimate wind speed against Goochland's 90 to 105, and is named in the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act where Goochland is not. Crossing it turns a reserve drainfield from 50 percent if the soil is slow into 100 percent regardless, and drops the land disturbance threshold from 10,000 square feet to 2,500. A postal address settles none of this. The parcel does.

U.S. Census Bureau 2020 ZCTA-to-county relationship file (tab20_zcta520_county20_natl.txt); Henrico County Climatic and Geographic Design Criteria, henrico.gov/bldg/design-criteria; Va. Code 62.1-44.15:68

Close-in acreage, and it is being bought
Goochland covers 282 square miles at about 104 people to the square mile, and grew 17.4 percent between 2020 and 2025 to 29,187 people, the second-fastest growth in the Richmond region behind New Kent. It holds 40,711 acres in farms, 22.7 percent of the county, across 268 farms with a median farm of 40 acres and 12,395 acres of woodland inside those farms. The number that matters most to someone looking for a building site is 151: that is how many farms here are under 50 acres, in a county whose eastern edge touches Henrico.

U.S. Census Bureau Vintage 2025 population estimates and 2025 Gazetteer counties file; USDA 2022 Census of Agriculture county table

Radon Zone 1, with no county rule attached
EPA's county radon table puts Goochland in Zone 1, its highest predicted band, above 4 picocuries per litre. The county has not adopted the optional radon-resistant construction appendix of the Virginia Residential Code, so passive sub-slab detailing here is a choice rather than a permit condition. It is also far cheaper as a drawing than as a retrofit, because the membrane and the stack go in while the slab is still on paper.

EPA radon zone county table; adoption of the Virginia Residential Code radon appendix confirmed absent for Goochland in research/statewide/design-criteria-and-climate.md

A Goochland business licence, checked at the counter
Before a permit application is even taken in, Goochland staff check that every contractor on it holds a County of Goochland business licence and is licensed by the Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation for the scope of work shown. The county states no dollar threshold. Chesterfield next door draws its line differently, accepting any Virginia locality's licence up to $25,000 of work and requiring a Chesterfield licence above it. Two adjacent counties, two different local rules, on top of the same statewide DPOR requirement.

Goochland County, Develop Property FAQs, goochlandva.us

Under 256 square feet, no permit and no foundation
Goochland's small structures policy sets out where the building code stops. A detached one-storey structure of 256 square feet or less used for storage or a similar purpose needs no building permit, and needs no foundation if it also has eaves no higher than 10 feet, a finished floor no more than 18 inches above grade, supporting structure in direct contact with the ground, light-frame construction and anchoring against wind. Zoning still applies: a compliance form goes to the county, the structure is only an accessory building if it is not structurally attached to the main building, it needs five feet to any side or rear line, and the policy says flatly that it shall not serve as a living area. Note that this policy still cites the county's previous zoning ordinance by its old article numbers, so use it for the code thresholds and Chapter 15 for anything about zoning.

Goochland County Policy 2018-01, Permitting Requirements for Small Structures, issued 26 September 2018, citing VCC 108.2(2) and VCC 1808.1 exception; goochlandva.us/DocumentCenter/View/4874

An excavator grading a compacted building pad on a cleared lot, with survey stakes and a drainage swale visible.
Below the slab

The expensive surprises are in the ground, not the building

What moves a Virginia budget is usually below grade, and it is soil rather than rock. Five localities already treat a soil answer as a condition of the permit rather than a recommendation — Fauquier, Chesterfield, Isle of Wight, Madison and Culpeper each require a soil report, an engineered foundation design, or both before the footings are approved. Chesterfield asks for one on every new house with no opt-out, on its own published reasoning that small amounts of shrink-swell soil may turn up anywhere in the county. Virginia Energy puts the same point bluntly: standard homeowner's insurance does not cover damage from expansive or compressive soils. Along the Interstate 81 corridor the question changes shape entirely — Virginia Energy counts twenty-seven Virginia counties in the karst zone that follows that road, where what matters is what is under the slab rather than what the slab sits in, and karst does not stay west of the Blue Ridge: Loudoun County publishes karst terrain of its own, on the other side of it. The same ground then sizes the septic system, because 12VAC5-610 works from bedrooms and soil texture — 150 gallons a day per bedroom, with no row in the table for a shop, a garage or a barn at all, and clay assigned to the slowest texture group at 91 minutes per inch or worse, past the 45 minutes per inch that makes a reserve drainfield mandatory. The soil that needs a foundation engineer multiplies the drainfield. So the site work, the foundation and the drainfield get resolved together rather than one at a time. We price the dirt before we price the building.

What we build in Goochland County

All nine services are available in Goochland County. What a build costs depends far more on the parcel than on square footage, so we price against your land rather than publishing a rate card.

Custom Plans

Barndominium floor plans drawn to your parcel and to the design criteria your own Virginia locality publishes, not to a generic national spec.

Barndominium Kits

Engineered barndominium shell packages delivered to your Virginia land, drawn to the criteria your own building department fills in.

Turnkey Builds

Start to finish barndominium construction: permits, site work, shell and full interior finish, under one contract and one schedule.

See all nine services

What a build looks like

Three stages every Goochland County project passes through, from a raw parcel to a finished home. Site work first, because that is where the budget is decided.

Aerial view of an undeveloped rural lot with cleared grass, a oak and hickory treeline with a few loblolly pines, and a pale gravel access track.
Stage one

The parcel

Zoning, setbacks, flood zone and utility access get checked before anything is drawn.

An excavator grading a compacted building pad on a cleared lot, with survey stakes and a drainage swale visible.
Stage two

Pad and permit

Clearing, grading and a compacted pad, while the submittal works through whichever office issues the permit where you are building.

A finished barndominium at dusk with warm interior lighting glowing through its large windows.
Stage three

Frame to finish

Shell erected and dried in, then systems, insulation and interior finish through to CO.

Those are the rules where you are building in Goochland County. Tell us what you want to build and we will draw it to them.

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Where we build around Goochland County

Goochland County and the rural land around it. The buildable acreage for a project this size usually sits outside the city limits, which is frequently what changes who issues your permit.

The Goochland County service area, including the rural acreage outside the built-up edge, which is where the parcels big enough for a build like this usually sit. The map marks the territory we build in. It is not a branch location, and there is no office at this pin.

Keep reading

The questions that usually come next once you know what Goochland County allows.

Barndominium Cost Guide

Sourced per-square-foot ranges by tier and by size, with a calculator built on the same figures.

Read it

Is It Legal in Virginia?

Classification, zoning, the HOA gate, and why "nonresidential farm building" does not cover a home.

Read it

How Long Does It Take?

Census build-duration data, and what actually sets the permit clock where you are building.

Read it

Nearby areas we build in

Others we cover nearby. One may be a county, another an independent city that belongs to no county at all, and another a town inside a county — so the office that issues the permit, the fees it charges, the zoning and the design criteria each locality publishes can all differ from one card to the next.

Richmond

Richmond
Chesterfield County

Chesterfield County
Louisa County

Louisa County
Hanover County

Hanover County

Building in Goochland County: common questions

9 questions we get asked most often about building in Goochland County. If yours is not on the list, ask it directly.

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Can the shop be bigger than the house in Goochland County?
Yes, and there is no ratio to satisfy. Goochland's rule on accessory buildings is a single short paragraph in section 15-285.B of the zoning ordinance, and it does one thing: it sets setbacks. Accessory buildings are allowed in accordance with the setbacks of the district they sit in, no accessory structure may come closer than five feet to a property line, and anything attached to the main building is treated as part of the main building and may encroach three feet into a setback. There is no floor-area cap, no percentage of the dwelling, no height limit and no limit on how many you have. That is worth knowing precisely because it is not how the neighbours work. Chesterfield caps accessory buildings in its Rural Community district at 200 percent of the principal dwelling's gross floor area, so a 4,000 square foot shop there needs at least a 2,000 square foot house behind it, and the City of Richmond will not let an accessory building exceed the main house's building area or 20 feet in height. In Goochland's two agricultural districts the ordinance treats an accessory structure as subordinate in use, not in size.
Do I need a soil report to build here, and does it apply to a shop?
Yes to the first, and it depends on the shop. Goochland's Shrink/Swell Soil Policy, reissued on 10 September 2024, requires a written report before a permit for any new single-family dwelling, duplex or townhouse, for any addition that expands an existing footprint, for a detached heavy-frame structure over 400 square feet, for a detached light-frame structure over 600 square feet, and for all new commercial work. So a detached shop of any real size is in. The report has to come from a Virginia registered professional engineer, certified professional soil scientist or certified professional geologist, and it needs at least two borings taken remotely from one another from inside the footprint of the building, drilled to ASTM D 1452. General soil testing done at subdivision stage will not be accepted in its place. If the report comes back moderate or high, a site-specific footing and foundation plan sealed by a registered design professional has to come with it. There is one exemption that matters a great deal for this building type: engineered metal light frame structures for undisturbed earth supported and helix anchor design, without a footing, are exempt by name. A steel building on helical anchors on undisturbed ground is outside the requirement. Give it a conventional footing, or put habitable space in it so it becomes part of a dwelling, and it is back inside.
Is Goochland in the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act, like Henrico and Chesterfield?
No, and this is one of the more consequential things about buying here. The Act applies to a closed list of jurisdictions written into the Code of Virginia at section 62.1-44.15:68, and that list names 29 counties and 17 cities. Henrico, Hanover, Chesterfield, New Kent and the City of Richmond are all on it. Goochland is not, and its own Code of Ordinances has no Chesapeake Bay chapter to match. Three obligations that follow a parcel across those county lines therefore stop at Goochland's boundary. There is no requirement for a reserve sewage disposal site of equal capacity on every new-construction lot regardless of how the soil performs. There is no five-yearly septic pump-out or certification. And there is no Resource Protection Area, so there is no 100-foot buffer along both sides of every stream with perennial flow, and no bar on a new dwelling inside it. What applies instead is the ordinary statewide rule, where a reserve area of 50 percent of the absorption field is required only where the percolation rate exceeds 45 minutes per inch. That is a genuine advantage on a wooded, stream-crossed parcel, and it is one you lose the moment you cross into Henrico looking for a shorter commute.
Then does the clay still matter for the septic system?
Very much so, and this is where people relax too early. Being outside the Bay Act removes the automatic 100 percent reserve, but it does not remove the reserve. Virginia assigns a septic design rate from soil texture rather than requiring a pit test, and clay falls in Texture Group IV at 91 minutes per inch or slower. That is already past the 45-minute threshold at which a 50 percent reserve area becomes mandatory, and it is within reach of the 120-minute ceiling beyond which no conventional trench may be placed at all, which is the point where an alternative system enters the budget. Sizing is by bedroom, at 150 gallons a day each, with no living-area band and no row for a shop, a garage or a barn however large you build it. So the difference between Goochland and a Bay Act county is not that slow soil is free here. It is that here the reserve arrives because of the soil rather than because of the map, which means a soil evaluation before you buy will tell you the answer. Get one on any parcel you are serious about, and get it before the contract rather than after.
What design numbers do I have to build to, and why do I see two wind speeds?
The county sets them, not the state. The 2021 Virginia Residential Code prints Table R301.2 blank with the instruction that the local jurisdiction fills it in, so Goochland publishes its own: seismic design category B, weathering severe, frost depth 18 inches, termite moderate to heavy, winter design temperature 17 degrees, mean annual temperature 56.1 degrees, air freezing index 1500 or less, ice barrier underlayment yes and rainfall 3.3 inches per hour. Ground snow load is answered with a county snow load map rather than a single number, which is unusual and means the answer depends on where in the county you are. On wind, the county publishes two figures. Its Design Criteria page says 90 to 105 miles per hour as three-second gusts; its own FAQ says 115 miles per hour, also as three-second gusts, with every other row of the two lists identical. Applying the standard conversion between the older nominal basis and the current ultimate one, 115 ultimate corresponds to about 89 nominal, so these are almost certainly one wind expressed two ways. But 90 and 115 are not interchangeable inputs to a frame design, so confirm the basis with the building official before a supplier engineers anything to either figure. On seismic, do not be alarmed by the Central Virginia Seismic Zone: Goochland publishes category B, so does Louisa where the 2011 earthquake was centred, and the code does not stop exempting a detached dwelling from seismic design until category D0.
How big a lot do I need, and what are the setbacks?
In both agricultural districts, A-1 and A-2, the by-right minimum is three acres for a lot fronting an existing public road, and two acres only for a lot fronting an internal road created within a project. Watch for that, because the district's own statement of intent describes two-acre by-right development and gets quoted as though two acres were the general answer. Lot area is measured exclusive of road rights-of-way, ponds, lakes and rivers, so water frontage does not count toward it. Minimum lot width is 350 feet on Routes 6 and 250, 300 feet on Routes 45, 650, 632, 670, 621, 623 and 522, and 200 feet everywhere else, with frontage at 75 percent of the required width. Front setbacks are 100 feet on those named routes, 75 feet on a secondary road and 55 feet on a private road, which is a long way back and worth checking against a narrow parcel before you buy it. Side is 20 feet and rear 35 feet for the house. A detached accessory building needs only five feet to a side or rear line, though in a front yard it takes the principal building's front setback. Neither district's standards table publishes a maximum building height or a lot-coverage cap.
Does a shop with living quarters count as a dwelling here?
It turns on two things: whether it is one building or two, and whether there is a kitchen. On the first, the ordinance is unusually clear. To count as detached, a structure must sit five feet from the main building and share no roof, no wall and no floor with it. Anything attached is treated as part of the principal building. So a single-roof barndominium, with the living space and the shop under one structure, is simply a single-family detached dwelling, which is permitted by right in both agricultural districts. One permit, one building, no conditional use and no size cap on the shop half. If instead you put living quarters into a separate shop on a lot that already has a house, that is an accessory family housing unit, detached, and it needs a conditional use permit at a published $800 plus $50 per dwelling unit or lot. Goochland puts no square-foot cap on it, but it does restrict who lives there: only people related to a resident of the principal dwelling, never rented separately, with an affidavit filed with the Circuit Court Clerk before use and written notice to any future purchaser. On the second point, the ordinance defines a dwelling unit as rooms designed for living or sleeping with at least one kitchen, or another room with a stove or an electric or gas hookup for one. A shop with a bathroom, a sink, an office and a bed is not a second dwelling unit. Put a range circuit in it and it is.
How long does a permit take in Goochland, and what does it cost?
The county's own published average turnaround is four weeks for a residential permit and six to eight weeks for a commercial one. Four desks touch a rural house: Building Inspection for the permit, Planning and Zoning for the zoning compliance certificate, Environment and Land Development for land disturbance and floodplain, and the Goochland Health Department for well and septic. Note that septic is chained to the building permit, because the Health Department will not review a septic construction permit until the building permit has been applied for, so those two go in together rather than in sequence. On money, the fee schedule is codified in Appendix C of the Code of Ordinances. A residential building permit is $30 up to $4,000 of computed value and $30 plus $4.50 per $1,000 above that, plus a 2 percent state levy, and trade permits are $100 up to $10,000 and $100 plus $4.50 per $1,000 above. The initial inspection and first reinspection are free; every one after that is $100, and a plan re-review is $250. Health department processing is $40 for well and septic or $25 for septic alone. The value the fee is calculated on is the county's own, not your contract price: it computes finished space at $55 to $85 a square foot depending on total building size, and unfinished space at exactly half that. Applications are taken between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m., and the county states that permits arriving after 4 p.m. will not be accepted.
Which part of Goochland should I be looking at?
It depends on what you are optimising for, and there is a tax line running through the middle of the answer. The eastern end, inside the Tuckahoe Creek Service District, is the closest land to Richmond and the first part of the county you reach coming out Broad Street Road. It has public water and sewer, and it also carries an ad valorem tax of 32 cents per $100 of assessed value on top of the county real estate rate of 53 cents, so 85 cents rather than 53, funding utility borrowing the county says will not be repaid until 2042. That district runs to the Henrico line on the east, the Hanover line on the north, parts of Hockett, Hermitage and Rockville Roads on the west, and Route 6 on the south. West of it is A-2, the transitional band, and west of Routes 522 and 607 is A-1, the general agricultural half of the county where the larger tracts are. Across the whole county there are 40,711 acres in farms, 22.7 percent of the land, with a median farm of 40 acres and 151 farms under 50 acres, which is a genuinely deep supply of building-sized parcels this close to a metro. One warning on addresses: the west-Richmond ZIP codes straddle the line. On Census figures 23238 is only about 57.5 percent Goochland and 23233 only about 27 percent, with the rest in Henrico, which has its own building department, its own design figures, and Chesapeake Bay Act obligations Goochland does not have. Confirm the parcel, never the postal address.

Building in Goochland County?

Start with the plan. Tell us what you want to build and we will draw it, then confirm which office issues the permit for your parcel, what it will let you put there, and what wind load it has to meet. That conversation costs nothing.

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