The Shenandoah Valley floor in pasture and cropland with limestone outcrops and the Blue Ridge on the horizon.
Staunton One statewide code, no local amendments

Barndominium Builders in Staunton & Waynesboro, VA

Staunton and Waynesboro are two of Virginia's 38 independent cities, sitting twelve miles apart with Augusta County wrapped around both and governing neither. Each runs its own building department, its own zoning ordinance and its own fee schedule, and the two agree on almost nothing: Staunton's largest residential lot is 15,000 square feet and caps an accessory building at 15 feet, Waynesboro's is 12,000 square feet and caps one at 22 feet and half the floor area of the house. Where they do agree is the number that matters most to a clear-span building — both publish 43 pounds per square foot of ground snow, the heaviest figure any Virginia locality publishes, matching Augusta County exactly. The land is the other half of the story. Waynesboro has no agricultural district at all, and the roughly 2,600 acres inside Staunton's city limits sit in four agricultural-forestal overlay districts where a dwelling is permitted only for someone earning a substantial part of their livelihood from farming or forestry on that same property. The acreage a barndominium needs is in the county, and since June 2026 even the county courthouse has moved out of downtown Staunton to Verona.

Staunton & Waynesboro at a glance

Independent city
Staunton
Cities & counties covered
Staunton 26,801 · Waynesboro 23,951
Site visits
Site visits in both cities and across Augusta County, usually within the week
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Building conditions in Staunton & Waynesboro

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 Staunton & Waynesboro , Staunton, Virginia : design wind speed 115 mph V_ult, Risk Category II (Staunton); Waynesboro publishes none. BUILD CONDITIONS STAUNTON & WAYNES…StauntonONE STATEWIDE CODEDESIGN WIND SPEED115 mph V_ult, Risk…Staunton's own Current Building Codes and Design Criteria sheet prints "Wind Speed: VULT 115 MPHfor Risk Category II" — the same figure and the same wording Augusta County publishes.…ZONING · R-1 LOW DENSITY RESIDENTIAL AND THE…15,000 sq ft in Staunton R-1, and 1…Two ordinances, and not one row of them matches. Staunton City Codesection 18.20.040 sets 15,000 square feet and 75 feet of lot width…BUILDING PERMIT FEE — NEITHER CITY LEVIES AN…$0.18/sq ft (Staunton); $0.15/sq ft…Staunton City Code section 15.10.120 charges $0.18 per square footwith a $75 minimum for a new residential building or addition, and…WHO ISSUES THE PERMITCity of Staunton Community Developme…Staunton takes applications through an online permitting portalopened 5 May 2026, still accepts paper, and publishes an estimated…
Build conditions for Staunton & Waynesboro, drawn from the sourced facts on this page. Every figure above is cited in the quick-facts panel below, with its source and vintage.
Two cities, two building departments, and a county that governs neither
Staunton and Waynesboro are each one of Virginia's 38 independent cities — county equivalents belonging to no county at all. Augusta County wraps around both and reaches into neither. Staunton City Code section 15.05.020 creates the city's own department of building inspection under a building official appointed by the city manager who is also the code official, and section 15.10.050 seats a five-member Board of Building Code Appeals composed of one architect, one general contractor or engineer and three members at large from the building industry. Waynesboro City Code section 18-27 has its city manager appoint its building official, and section 18-29 seats a separate five-member appeals board with alternates on staggered five-year terms. Twelve miles apart, three permit counters, and the town line decides which one you use — not the mailing address.

Staunton City Code §§ 15.05.020 and 15.10.050, and Waynesboro City Code §§ 18-27 and 18-29 (Ord. No. 2020-49, 24 August 2020), read on ecode360.com (ST4660) and api.municode.com (client 4849, product 11686, job 494325) on 2 September 2026

The county seat left Staunton in June 2026, after 288 years
Augusta County was formed in 1738, and its government and courts sat in what is now the City of Staunton — a city the county has never governed — until the summer of 2026. The new Augusta County Courthouse at 100 Dick Huff Lane in Verona was opened with a ribbon cutting on 3 June 2026, and the county's three courts began operating there on Monday 15 June 2026, with the old facilities closed 8 to 12 June for the move. Circuit Court judge The Honorable Shannon T. Sherrill put it this way at the ceremony: "Consider that for the first time in nearly 300 years, the seat of Augusta County will stand outside its historic location in downtown Staunton." The county's own release calls the move a milestone in its nearly 288-year history. Drive to downtown Staunton looking for Augusta County today and you will find a city hall, not a county one.

Augusta County, "Augusta County Celebrates Opening of New Courthouse", county news release posted 5 June 2026, co.augusta.va.us; Supreme Court of Virginia, Augusta County Circuit Court information page, vacourts.gov/courts/circuit/augusta, which prints the Verona address as current

43 psf of ground snow — the heaviest figure published anywhere in Virginia
The 2021 Virginia Residential Code prints its climatic and geographic table blank and leaves each locality to fill it in, so these numbers are each city's own. Staunton's Current Building Codes and Design Criteria sheet publishes ground snow 43 PSF, wind speed VULT 115 MPH for Risk Category II, seismic design category B, weathering Severe, frost line depth 24 inches, termites Moderate to Heavy, decay Slight to Moderate, winter design temperature 16 degrees, ice shield underlayment Yes, flood hazards 9/28/2007, air freezing index 500 and Climate Zone 4 non-marine. Waynesboro's Design Standards page publishes ground snow 43 psf, frost depth 24 inches below finish grade, seismic design category B, winter design temperature 16 degrees F, termite Moderate/Heavy and weathering Severe. Augusta County publishes 43 psf too. Three jurisdictions, one valley, and the heaviest ground snow load any Virginia locality prints — against 10 psf in Virginia Beach and Chesapeake.

City of Staunton, Current Building Codes and Design Criteria, ci.staunton.va.us/home/showpublisheddocument/12463/638549281038230000; City of Waynesboro, Design Standards, waynesboro.va.us/152/Design-Standards; comparison figures from each named locality's own published criteria via research/statewide/design-criteria-and-climate.md § 4b

Waynesboro fills in every design row but the wind speed
Waynesboro's Design Standards page has seven rows. Six carry numbers. The seventh, Design Wind Speed, reads in full: "Varies - Call our office for further information." Staunton, twelve miles away, publishes VULT 115 MPH for Risk Category II, and Augusta County publishes the same figure in the same words. A wind speed is the first number a post-frame or steel-frame supplier asks for, and in Waynesboro it comes from a phone call to the Building and Zoning office rather than from a published table. It cannot be borrowed from Staunton or from the county: those are different jurisdictions filling in their own copies of a table the state deliberately left blank.

City of Waynesboro, Design Standards, waynesboro.va.us/152/Design-Standards, fetched 2 September 2026; City of Staunton, Current Building Codes and Design Criteria sheet; 2021 Virginia Residential Code Table R301.2, printed blank with "additional criteria shall be established by the local jurisdiction"

Staunton has 2,600 acres of farmland — and a rule that keeps you off it
Chapter 18.95 of Staunton's zoning ordinance continues four agricultural and forestal districts inside a 19.9-square-mile city: Bell's Lane at 1,662.34 acres plus a further 26.19, Merrifield at 218.441, 147.202 and 196.13 acres, M. O. Carr at 40.67, 35.167, 10.54 and 45.56 acres, and Middlebrook at 221.266 acres fronting about 6,500 feet along the south-western city limits. Land in a district must be used solely for agricultural and forestal production, verified by an affidavit filed with the city assessor every 1 July. Section 18.95.030(2) permits a dwelling only for persons who earn a substantial part of their livelihood from farm or forestry operations on the same property, or for the owner's immediate family — minimum one acre, maximum 10 percent lot coverage, 100 feet off the front line and 50 feet off the rear and sides — and caps every building other than the dwelling at one storey or 15 feet. Section 18.95.060(3) bars any more intensive use than existed when the district was created without City Council approval, and limits a parcel to ten turkeys, ten hogs and twenty chickens. The current ten-year term runs to 31 December 2030.

Staunton City Code §§ 18.95.020, 18.95.030, 18.95.040, 18.95.050, 18.95.060 and 18.95.070 (Ord. 2004-38; Ord. 2010-29; Ord. 2018-26; Ord. 2020-01; Ord. 2020-16), read on ecode360.com (ST4660) 2 September 2026; Va. Code §§ 15.2-4300 to 15.2-4314

The shop is capped at 15 feet in one city and 22 in the other
This is where the two ordinances part company hardest. Staunton section 18.20.050 caps an accessory building at 15 feet in height while the house may reach 35 feet, and section 18.110.020 requires every accessory use to be subordinate in area, extent and purpose to the principal use. Its list of permitted accessory structures for a dwelling in section 18.110.030 runs to a private garage or carport, a shed for storage of maintenance or recreation equipment used on the premises, a greenhouse or garden, a pool and bathhouse, a playhouse, pet shelters and a coop for up to six chickens — there is no workshop and no barn on it. Waynesboro section 98-4.6.2 instead caps an accessory building at 22 feet or the height of the principal building, whichever is less, and at 50 percent of the principal building's floor area individually and 60 percent for all of them combined. A detached shop bigger than the house is impossible in Waynesboro by arithmetic and awkward in Staunton by definition. Attach the shop to the dwelling in either city and it stops being accessory at all.

Staunton City Code §§ 18.20.050, 18.110.020 and 18.110.030; Waynesboro City Code § 98-4.6.2 (Ord. No. 2024-12, § 1, 22 April 2024)

Also worth knowing before you build in Staunton & Waynesboro

Three fee schedules, three different measuring sticks
Staunton charges $0.18 per square foot with a $75 minimum for a new residential building, a flat $75 for a residential accessory building, $100 for a pool, $90 for each residential trade permit and $150 where gas is combined with plumbing or mechanical, $200 for plan review before application, $100 for a revision, $50 for a reinspection and $25 to renew a permit. Its schedule then says how it measures: outside dimensions of the structure, including all heated and unheated space, excluding crawl spaces and unfinishable attics. Waynesboro charges $0.15 per square foot with a $50 minimum for new construction and additions, $0.05 for alterations, $0.10 per square foot for accessory structures, $25 for fences and pre-built storage buildings, $75 for a manufactured home placement and $50 for each trade permit — calculated on gross floor area. Augusta County charges $0.18 per square foot of heated living space. Same headline rate as Staunton, entirely different bill on a building that is mostly unheated shop.

Staunton City Code § 15.10.120 (Ord. 2005-10; Ord. 2007-11; Ord. 2018-23; Ord. 2024-31); City of Waynesboro Residential Permit Fee Schedule, waynesboro.va.us/DocumentCenter/View/58; Augusta County Permit Costs, co.augusta.va.us, per research/entries/augusta-county-va.json

A $10 farm building and a dwelling are not the same permit, and neither city has the $10 line
Augusta County publishes a $10 flat fee for a farm building permit, against $0.18 per square foot of heated living space for a dwelling. It is the cheapest permit in the Valley and it is a trap for anyone planning to live in the building, because Va. Code § 36-97 defines a farm building as one not used for residential purposes. The moment residential use begins, the structure is not a farm building, and the Uniform Statewide Building Code applies to all of it. Inside Staunton or Waynesboro the question never arises: neither city's published fee schedule carries a farm-building line at all. Staunton's agricultural-forestal chapter makes the same point from the other direction — land in an A-1 district must be used solely for agricultural and forestal production, and the permission to put a dwelling on it is a separate, narrow subsection with its own occupancy test.

Augusta County Permit Costs, co.augusta.va.us/government/departments-and-offices/building-inspection/permit-costs; Va. Code § 36-97, definition of "farm building or structure"; Staunton City Code §§ 15.10.120 and 18.95.030; City of Waynesboro Residential Permit Fee Schedule

Karst is real here and neither city regulates it as a foundation problem
A 2003 Virginia Tech study by Bradley Paul Belo, drawing on Virginia Speleological Survey data, puts Augusta County at about 40 percent karst. Virginia Energy records that in March 2001 a nine-mile stretch of Interstate 81 in Augusta County closed after three sinkholes appeared, the largest 20 feet by 11 feet and 22 feet deep, and that VDOT has logged roughly 500 road-damaging sinkholes in thirty years. Both cities do define karst in their own codes — Staunton at section 13.01.015, Waynesboro in Chapter 30 Article II — as any land predominantly underlain by limestone, dolomite or other soluble bedrock, with karst features meaning sinkholes, sinking and losing streams, caves and large flow springs. Both require a stormwater management plan to map karst features and to show soil types and geologic formations where karst features are present. That is the whole of it: state model stormwater language in the erosion chapter, and no karst-specific foundation, geotechnical or setback requirement in either city. A single-family lot in Staunton files an agreement in lieu of a plan rather than a stormwater plan, so the mapping duty does not even engage.

Belo, Bradley Paul, "Natural Hazard Mitigation Planning For Karst Terrains in Virginia", Virginia Tech, May 2003, Table 3.1, attributed to the Virginia Speleological Survey (2003); Virginia Energy, "Sinkholes and Karst", energy.virginia.gov/geology/Sinkholes.shtml; Staunton City Code §§ 13.01.015(48), 13.01.015(49) and 13.01.070; Waynesboro City Code ch. 30 art. II

Waynesboro can stop you drilling a well
Waynesboro's Groundwater Management Overlay, zoning section 98-3.3.4, is laid over parts of the city where the aquifers are known to contain contaminants above the maximum levels set by state or federal law, plus a buffer. Inside it, connection to the city water system is required for all development wherever service is available on-site, by easement or in an adjacent right-of-way; after connection, use of any other source of water supply for domestic use must cease; and no owner may place a new well or operate an existing one for domestic use unless public water is not available. An existing well may still be used to irrigate lawn or ornamental plants. Check the zoning map before assuming a well is an option on a Waynesboro parcel. Staunton's zoning ordinance carries no equivalent overlay.

Waynesboro City Code § 98-3.3.4, Groundwater management overlay (-GMO), read via api.municode.com (client 4849, product 11686, job 494325, codified through Ordinance No. 2026-13 enacted 8 June 2026)

One flood map date across all three jurisdictions
Waynesboro's floodplain overlay records the effective date of the Flood Insurance Rate Map and Flood Insurance Study as 28 September 2007. Staunton's design criteria sheet prints Flood Hazards 9/28/2007, and Augusta County publishes the same date. It is the one design row on which all three jurisdictions in this valley agree without qualification. Both cities require new construction to have its lowest floor elevated to or above the base flood elevation and both only recommend, rather than require, more than a foot of freeboard — so the extra foot is a decision you make with your lender and insurer, not one the ordinance makes for you.

Waynesboro City Code § 98-3.3.5, Floodplain overlay (-FO); City of Staunton, Current Building Codes and Design Criteria sheet; Staunton City Code ch. 18.170; Augusta County design criteria per research/statewide/design-criteria-and-climate.md § 1b

Waynesboro will let a third party do the inspection, on its terms
Waynesboro publishes a written Third Party Inspection Policy under section 113.7.1 of the building code. The inspector must hold the appropriate Virginia DHCD certification for the inspection being performed, or be a design professional licensed in the Commonwealth. They may have no direct financial or familial interest in the project, which the policy spells out to include family members, employees, owners and contractors. They must be preapproved by the Building and Zoning office before the inspection date, must use a city form obtained beforehand with a separate form for each inspection, must complete and date it the day of the inspection, and must submit the report within two business days. Failure to obtain preapproval or the form automatically disqualifies the inspector, and preapproval can be revoked at any time.

City of Waynesboro Building & Zoning Department, Third Party Inspection Policy, waynesboro.va.us/DocumentCenter/View/11483/Third-party-inpection-written-policy

What actually stalls a Staunton permit
Staunton publishes an estimated processing time of ten business days and a submittal route through an online permitting portal opened on 5 May 2026, with paper still accepted. Four other approvals sit around it. A water and sewer connection and facility fees application goes to the City Engineer's Office to determine availability, and must be completed before any building permit issues. For a single-family home or a site disturbing under 10,000 square feet, an agreement in lieu of a plan must be signed by the owner, a pre-construction meeting held and the city's erosion and stormwater inspector must approve the initial controls — the agreement fee is $250 and the surety $2,500, against $3,000 for a full city land-disturbance permit. All real estate taxes must be paid before a permit is issued. And if the property is in a historic district, a certificate of appropriateness may be needed first. Electrical, plumbing, mechanical and gas are separate permits.

City of Staunton Building Services Division, Residential Permit Application Process, ci.staunton.va.us/departments/building-services-divison; Staunton City Code §§ 13.01.100 and 13.01.170 (performance security and fees) and § 15.10.120

The nearest usable acreage, named
Augusta County is 967 square miles, the second-largest county in Virginia by land area, and holds 243,974 acres in farms — 38.1 percent of its land, across 1,460 farms with a median size of 47 acres and 741 operations under 50 acres. The county's own arithmetic puts roughly 623,000 acres inside its lines with about 220,000 in federal or state hands, leaving around 403,000 privately owned. Its General Agriculture district starts at one acre with 150 feet of lot width. North of it, Rockingham County has 191,588 acres in farms across 1,722 farms — more than any other county in Virginia — a median of 46 acres and 886 operations under 50 acres, and publishes 42.5 psf of ground snow. East over the Blue Ridge, Nelson County is 471 square miles with 68,566 acres in farms, 22.8 percent of its land, 399 farms, a median of 72 acres and 138 operations under 50 acres. All three are governed by county zoning and a county building official, and none of them is Staunton or Waynesboro.

2022 Census of Agriculture, county series, via research/statewide/geography-and-population.md § 4.2; Augusta County Zoning Ordinance § 25-77.2 and Community Development FAQ, per research/entries/augusta-county-va.json; Rockingham County Climate and Geographic Design Criteria 2023

Septic sizes on bedrooms, and the shop counts for nothing
Both cities sit in the Central Shenandoah Health District, which VDH's own page defines as the counties of Augusta, Bath, Highland, Rockbridge and Rockingham and the cities of Buena Vista, Harrisonburg, Lexington, Staunton and Waynesboro. VDH issues the septic permit, not the private evaluator, and on a single-lot permit it is deemed approved if the department does not act within 15 working days. Sizing comes from 12VAC5-610-670 Table 5.1 at 150 gallons per day per bedroom, with no living-area band and no row for a shop, garage or barn at all — so a 4,000 square foot barndominium with three bedrooms sizes exactly as a 1,400 square foot three-bedroom ranch. The design percolation rate is normally assigned from soil texture under 12VAC5-610-490 rather than measured in a pit, though the regulation expressly contemplates a measured rate and requires shrink-swell soils to be thoroughly wetted before a percolation test. Staunton requires the health department's construction permits to be uploaded with the building permit application wherever the lot is served by well or septic.

VDH Central Shenandoah Health District, vdh.virginia.gov/central-shenandoah; Va. Code § 32.1-163.5; 12VAC5-610-670 Table 5.1, 12VAC5-610-490 and 12VAC5-610-950 D 1; City of Staunton Building Services Division, Residential Permit Application Process

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 Staunton & Waynesboro

All nine services are available in Staunton & Waynesboro. 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.

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What a build looks like

Three stages every Staunton & Waynesboro 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 Staunton & Waynesboro. Tell us what you want to build and we will draw it to them.

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Where we build around Staunton & Waynesboro

Staunton 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 Staunton & Waynesboro 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 Staunton & Waynesboro allows.

Barndominium Cost Guide

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

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Is It Legal in Virginia?

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

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How Long Does It Take?

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

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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.

Augusta County

Augusta County
Rockingham County

Rockingham County
Albemarle County

Albemarle County

Building in Staunton & Waynesboro: common questions

8 questions we get asked most often about building in Staunton & Waynesboro. If yours is not on the list, ask it directly.

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Does Augusta County issue my permit if I build in Staunton or Waynesboro?
No, and this is the single most common misunderstanding about building here. Staunton and Waynesboro are independent cities — county equivalents that belong to no county at all. Augusta County surrounds both of them and has no authority inside either city line, and neither city has any authority outside its own. Inside Staunton you deal with the Building Services Division of the city's Community Development department; inside Waynesboro with the Building Division of that city's Community Development department at 230 S. Wayne Ave.; on the farmland around and between them with Augusta County Building Inspection at 18 Government Center Lane in Verona. The confusion has an unusually good excuse: Augusta County's courthouse sat in downtown Staunton from the county's formation in 1738 until June 2026. It does not any more. The new courthouse opened at 100 Dick Huff Lane in Verona with a ribbon cutting on 3 June 2026 and the courts began operating there on 15 June 2026. The county seat is now inside the county for the first time in 288 years.
What wind speed and snow load do I design to in each city?
The 2021 Virginia Residential Code prints its climatic and geographic table blank, with a line saying additional criteria shall be established by the local jurisdiction — so these are each city's own numbers rather than a state figure. Staunton publishes a full sheet: ground snow 43 PSF, wind speed VULT 115 MPH for Risk Category II, seismic design category B, weathering Severe, frost line 24 inches, termites Moderate to Heavy, decay Slight to Moderate, winter design temperature 16 degrees, ice shield underlayment Yes, flood hazards 9/28/2007, air freezing index 500, Climate Zone 4 non-marine. Waynesboro publishes ground snow 43 psf, frost depth 24 inches below finish grade, seismic design category B, winter design temperature 16 degrees F, termite Moderate/Heavy and weathering Severe — and for wind it says "Varies - Call our office for further information." So in Waynesboro the wind speed comes from the Building and Zoning office on 540-942-6628, in writing, before you order a frame. Do not use Staunton's 115 mph as a substitute; a neighbouring jurisdiction's fill-in of a blank table is not yours. What both cities do agree on is 43 psf of ground snow, which is the heaviest figure any Virginia locality publishes and matches Augusta County exactly. On a clear-span shop roof that number, not the wind, is usually what sizes the frame.
Can I build a shop with living quarters in either city?
You can build a dwelling with a large attached workspace in both, and that is usually the right shape here. What neither city will comfortably permit is a big detached shop with an apartment in it. In Staunton, section 18.20.050 caps an accessory building at 15 feet in height while the dwelling may reach 35, and section 18.110 requires every accessory use to be customarily incidental to and subordinate in area, extent and purpose to the principal use — its list of permitted accessory structures for a dwelling runs to a private garage or carport, a shed for maintenance or recreation equipment used on the premises, a greenhouse, a pool, a playhouse and a chicken coop, and does not include a workshop or a barn. A 16-foot eave does not fit under a 15-foot cap. In Waynesboro, section 98-4.6.2 caps an accessory building at 22 feet or the height of the house, whichever is less, at 50 percent of the house's floor area on its own, and at 60 percent for all accessory buildings combined. Waynesboro does have a named route for living quarters in an outbuilding: section 98-4.6.5 accessory apartments, expressly including a garage apartment, on a minimum 10,000 square foot lot, capped at 600 square feet or half the size of the principal dwelling, needing minor site plan approval, with the owner living in one of the two, no separate electrical meter and no manufactured home. Attach the shop to the house in either city and the whole thing is simply the principal structure, and the accessory tests never engage.
Staunton has farmland inside the city limits. Can I buy some and build?
Almost certainly not, and the reason is worth understanding before you make an offer. Chapter 18.95 of Staunton's zoning ordinance continues four agricultural and forestal districts inside the city — Bell's Lane at 1,662.34 acres plus another 26.19, Merrifield at 218.441, 147.202 and 196.13 acres, M. O. Carr at 40.67, 35.167, 10.54 and 45.56 acres, and Middlebrook at 221.266 acres. Land in a district must be used solely for agricultural and forestal production and must keep showing active, bona fide production, verified by an affidavit filed with the city assessor every 1 July. A dwelling is permitted there only for persons who earn a substantial part of their livelihood from farm or forestry operations on that same property, or for the owner's immediate family — one acre minimum, 10 percent maximum lot coverage, 100 feet off the front line and 50 feet off the rear and sides, and every building other than the dwelling capped at one storey or 15 feet. Section 18.95.060(3) also bars any more intensive use than existed when the district was created without City Council's approval. And if serving a new lot creates a private road, the city will not plough it or collect its trash, and says fire and rescue may be limited. The current ten-year term runs to 31 December 2030. This is an occupancy test, not a lot-size test, and it is the reason the acreage you can see from Route 262 is not the acreage you can build a barndominium on.
This is karst country. Will anyone make me investigate the ground before I build?
No, and that is the honest answer rather than the comfortable one. A 2003 Virginia Tech study by Bradley Paul Belo, using Virginia Speleological Survey data, puts Augusta County at roughly 40 percent karst. Virginia Energy records that in March 2001 a nine-mile stretch of Interstate 81 in this county closed after three sinkholes opened, the largest 20 feet by 11 feet and 22 feet deep, and that VDOT has logged around 500 road-damaging sinkholes in thirty years. Both cities define karst in their own codes — Staunton at section 13.01.015 and Waynesboro in Chapter 30 Article II — in identical state model wording, and both require a stormwater management plan to map karst features and to show soil types and geologic formations where karst features are present. But that is stormwater law, not foundation law. Neither city publishes a karst map, a sinkhole setback, a geotechnical trigger or an adjustment factor, and for a single-family lot Staunton's route is an agreement in lieu of a plan rather than a stormwater plan, so even the mapping duty does not engage. The Department of Conservation and Recreation says plainly that few legally binding mechanisms for karst protection exist in Virginia and disclaims its own statewide karst map for parcel-level decisions. So a subsurface investigation on a parcel with closed depressions, sinking streams or springs is something you buy because it is prudent, not because a permit demands it — and on this ground it is usually money well spent.
What will the permit cost, and why do the two cities quote it so differently?
Staunton charges $0.18 per square foot with a $75 minimum for a new residential building or addition, a flat $75 for a residential accessory building, $100 for a pool, $90 for each residential mechanical, plumbing, electrical or gas permit and $150 where gas is combined, $200 for plan review before application, $100 for a plan revision, $50 for a reinspection and $25 to renew. Waynesboro charges $0.15 per square foot with a $50 minimum for new construction and additions, $0.05 per square foot for alterations, $0.10 per square foot for accessory structures such as garages, storage buildings, carports and decks, $25 for a fence or a pre-built storage building, $75 for a manufactured home placement and $50 for each trade permit. But the rate is only half the arithmetic, because the two cities measure different things. Staunton's schedule says square footage is taken from the outside dimensions of the structure and includes all heated and unheated space, excluding crawl spaces and unfinishable attics. Waynesboro's says rates are calculated on gross floor area. Augusta County next door prints the same $0.18 as Staunton but measures it on heated living space only. On a building that is mostly unheated shop, that difference in the measuring stick moves the bill far more than the difference in the rate does. Waynesboro also notes on the same schedule that an accessory structure over 256 square feet requires continuous footings.
How long does a permit take, and what else has to be approved first?
Staunton publishes an estimated processing time of ten business days, and takes applications through an online permitting portal opened on 5 May 2026 with paper submittal still accepted. It wants a site sketch or plat and building plans, and where the lot is served by well or septic it wants the health department's construction permits uploaded too. Three other approvals sit around the building permit: a water and sewer connection and facility fees application to the City Engineer's Office to determine availability, which must be completed before any building permit issues; an agreement in lieu of a plan for land disturbance on a single-family home or a site under 10,000 square feet, at a $250 fee with a $2,500 surety, plus a pre-construction meeting and an inspector's approval of the initial controls; and payment in full of all real estate taxes. A certificate of appropriateness is needed first if the property is in a historic district. Waynesboro publishes no turnaround figure. It wants two sets of building plans no larger than 24 by 36 inches and two sets of site plans for a one- or two-family dwelling, with a plans checklist that specifically asks for the floor layout showing braced wall lines and braced wall panels and requires truss drawings to be on site at the framing inspection. Its inspection sequence is footing, slab, foundation and drain tile, rough-ins, framing, insulation and final, on 24 hours' notice, with a $50 fee for any work needing more than one re-inspection.
There is nowhere in either city to put a real barndominium. Where should I be looking?
Outward, and not far. Waynesboro is 15 square miles at about 1,600 people per square mile with no agricultural district at all and a largest minimum lot of 12,000 square feet, which is a bit over a quarter of an acre. Staunton is 19.9 square miles at about 1,345 per square mile, and its open land is locked inside agricultural and forestal overlay districts until at least the end of 2030. The land is in the ring. Augusta County is 967 square miles, the second-largest county in Virginia by land area, with 243,974 acres in farms — 38.1 percent of its land, 1,460 farms, a median farm of 47 acres and 741 operations under 50 acres, which is the number that matters because it counts tracts the size a family actually buys. Its General Agriculture district starts at one acre with 150 feet of lot width. Rockingham County to the north has 191,588 acres in farms and more farms than any other county in Virginia, with a median of 46 acres and 886 operations under 50. Nelson County east over the Blue Ridge is quieter and more wooded — 68,566 acres in farms across 399 farms with a median of 72 acres. All three are county jurisdictions with county zoning and a county building official, which usually means a longer route and much more room to build what you actually want.

Building in Staunton & Waynesboro?

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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