Want Affordable Housing? Try a Double-Wide!

For thirty years, Richmond has let each county decide whether a manufactured home could sit next to a stick-built house.  Most counties said it couldn’t and banned manufactured housing in their general residential districts.  Trailers were for farms and trailer parks.

That all changed on July 1, 2026.¹

What’s New?

In the before times, the state said counties must allow manufactured homes in agricultural districts.²  Everywhere else, treatment of manufactured housing was up to the county’s discretion.

Under the new law, if a county allows a traditional, site-built house in a particular zoning district, it has to allow a manufactured home there as well.  Effectively, counties cannot discriminate against trailers.

In agricultural districts, it’s a subtle change.  Everywhere else, the manufactured house has to meet three conditions: it has to become real estate (the wheels come off and the vehicle title is surrendered), it has to be less than five years old when someone moves in, and it has to sit on its own lot.³

No special permits.  No extra hoops.⁴

Counties get to keep their historic districts and private covenants still control (HOA rules, for example).  That’s about it.⁵

In practice, this means that a developer can now put a trailer in Fry’s Spring in Charlottesville.  This is a big change, and an opportunity.  How will the counties respond?

The counties haven’t caught up

The General Assembly did not give counties a deadline or a grace period to change their local laws.  The state law was enacted in March and simply took effect in July.

To me, this is an opportunity.  I know that localities here in Central Virginia must amend their ordinances to comply with the new state standards.  Some places might embrace the change and lean into the affordability manufactured housing allows.  Some might expand their historical districts or otherwise play cutesy with their ordinances to technically comply with the new state law, but maintain control over where residents can and cannot live in a manufactured home.

Three months after this new law took effect, I surveyed five counties around Charlottesville to see which way the wind is blowing relating to manufactured housing.  This update is good as of September 24, 2026.  Things will absolutely change in the future.

Why this matters: Dillon

Virginia is a Dillon Rule state.  In a nutshell, this means that a local jurisdiction (city or county) has only the powers the General Assembly gives it, plus whatever is fairly implied.⁶  When the state takes a power away (like the power to regulate trailers differently than other housing types), the power is gone.  It does not matter what the county code says.  State law controls whether the county modifies its local code or not.⁷

This reality works two ways: (1) a locality cannot enforce a ban the state has overridden; and (2) a locality cannot add conditions the state didn’t authorize.

This is the technical, legal answer.  The reality on the ground is different.  Your local zoning office does not work from the Code of Virginia.  It works from the county ordinance.  If you want to check this for yourself, walk in and apply for a permit to put a trailer in a residential district where the county code says you cannot.  The person at the counter will read you the county code.  You might get an acknowledgement that changes are being studied or reviewed, but you probably will not get an easy “yes, please put a trailer next to a $2M stick-built house in one of our fanciest neighborhoods.”  It depends on the county, but your best bet is asking for an opinion from the zoning administrator, then appealing if the answer conflicts with the new state law.

Which way is the wind blowing?

Here’s the forecast:

Albemarle hasn’t changed its code, but it’s the one county I surveyed whose staff has said out loud that the old rules can’t be enforced.⁸  The plan is to delete Albemarle’s rules surrounding manufactured housing that conflict with the state law as part of the county’s zoning rewrite, with a Board vote in early 2027 at the soonest.  Bigger moves toward manufactured and modular housing are on the longer-range list.  Until then, the county ordinance still says no in the residential districts.⁹

Modular and other housing on a permanent foundation get a sale premium of 20–30% per square foot over manufactured housing.  Development is, by and large, economically rational.  If Albemarle turbocharges construction of modular housing by reducing fees and red tape, we will get a boom in modular housing paired with less economic incentive to build manufactured housing.  That’s math.

Will Albemarle do this?  Time will tell.

Fluvanna has acted.  On August 19, they adopted ZTA 26:17, which mirrors part of the new state law and messes up part of it.¹⁰  They applied the new three-prong test to all zoning districts.  In all districts in Fluvanna County (including agricultural districts), you can place a trailer if (1) it becomes real estate (the wheels come off), (2) it is less than five years old when someone moves in, and (3) it has its own lot.

Anyone see the problem?  The italics on the word “all” in the above paragraph are a hint.  Bueller?  Bueller?

Ok.  The new Virginia statute says “Localities … shall provide that in all agricultural zoning districts … where site-built housing is allowed, the placement of manufactured homes shall be permitted.”  Broad, clear, mostly unconditional.

Fluvanna’s new ordinance places a restriction on manufactured housing more than five years old in their agricultural district.¹¹  Remember when I said a locality cannot add conditions the state didn’t authorize under Dillon?  Yeah, this is exactly what a locality isn’t allowed to do.  It’s probably inadvertent.  Also, a manufactured-home zoning permit still costs more than twice what a new house pays in Fluvanna County.¹²  No idea why that was ever the law there, but it’s probably void now.

Greene has a draft in front of its planning commission, but nothing adopted.  The draft gets the residential districts right.  It makes the same mistake Fluvanna did on the treatment of agricultural districts.¹³

Louisa hasn’t done anything.  Its code still bans manufactured homes in the residential districts.¹⁴  The county’s full, undivided attention is on its growth-management rewrite and campground rules.

Augusta hasn’t done anything either.  The new law hasn’t come up on a single agenda since June,¹⁵ and its code still bans manufactured homes in the residential districts.¹⁶  To be fair, the county updated its stormwater fees this month in lockstep with state changes that took effect the same day as the new manufactured housing law.¹⁷  They’ll get to it.

Augusta has a deep understanding of its growth plan.  They are probably thinking through implications of the new law, particularly in their growth areas where they are very protective of their long-term vision.

What it means for you

If you have an aspiration to build and sell manufactured housing on fee simple lots, you might be ahead of the curve.  The new state law was on the radar of land use lawyers/nerds, but maybe less so for the broader public.

If your deal depends on manufactured homes in a residential district, don’t wait for the county to fix its code.  Get the zoning administrator’s answer in writing before you close on the land.  A written answer is either a “yes” you can take to the bank, or a decision you can appeal.¹⁸

If you’re building a subdivision and do not want manufactured housing, covenants still work, so be sure to explicitly ban manufactured housing in your covenants.

Looking to the horizon, localities have options to prevent manufactured housing in urban areas.  The easy button is expanding their historical districts.  This would be terrible for development, however, because it would mean an extra thicket of red tape to build stick-built in neighborhoods that do not actually warrant historical district protection.  Localities can also play with other rules to economically hinder manufactured housing development, but again, this necessarily makes all development more expensive because stick-built and manufactured must be treated the same now.

Virginians face an unaffordability crisis.  My kids go to public school in Albemarle County, and many of their teachers live outside Albemarle County because they cannot afford to live here.  Richmond has stepped in to force an affordable option.  Attempts to resist by redrawing historical districts or making manufactured housing economically non-viable will make housing more expensive across the board.  I have views on how to fix that, but they’re beyond the scope of this article.

As always, if you want me to call your zoning administrator and get an answer on whether you can build manufactured housing on a parcel, give me a call or send me an email.

Footnotes

1. 2026 Va. Acts chs. 19 (H.B. 655) and 20 (S.B. 346), effective July 1, 2026. ↩

2. Va. Code Ann. § 15.2-2290(A) (2025) (amended 2026). ↩

3. Va. Code Ann. § 15.2-2290(A)–(B) (2026); see also Va. Code Ann. § 46.2-653.1 (converting a manufactured home to real property). ↩

4. Va. Code Ann. § 15.2-2290(B) (2026). ↩

5. Id. § 15.2-2290(B) (historic districts), (C) (uniform standards applied to all residences), (D) (restrictive covenants). ↩

6. Bd. of Supervisors v. Horne, 216 Va. 113, 117, 215 S.E.2d 453, 455 (1975); Commonwealth v. Cnty. Bd. of Arlington Cnty., 217 Va. 558, 573, 232 S.E.2d 30, 40 (1977). ↩

7. Va. Code Ann. § 1-248 (local ordinances may not be inconsistent with state law). ↩

8. Albemarle Cnty. Planning Comm’n, staff memorandum (July 28, 2026). ↩

9. Albemarle Cnty. Code ch. 18, §§ 13.2–18.2 (residential district uses), 5.6(b) (primary-residence limit).  Zoning Modernization Phase 2 schedule: Planning Commission hearing Nov. or Dec. 2026; Board of Supervisors hearing tentatively Jan. 13, 2027. ↩

10. Fluvanna Cnty. Bd. of Supervisors, ZTA 26:17 (adopted Aug. 19, 2026) (amending Fluvanna Cnty. Code §§ 22-5-2.1, 22-6-2.1, 22-7-9.1, 22-8-2.1). ↩

11. Fluvanna Cnty. Code § 22-17-15(A) (as amended by ZTA 26:17).  Compare Va. Code Ann. § 15.2-2290(A) (2026) (no conditions in agricultural districts). ↩

12. Fluvanna Cnty. Code § 22-17-7 ($350 zoning permit for a mobile home; $150 for new construction).  Whether a fee difference violates § 15.2-2290(B) has not been tested. ↩

13. Greene Cnty. Proposed Ordinance OR26-001 (Planning Comm’n public hearing Sept. 16, 2026; Board of Supervisors hearing not yet scheduled). ↩

14. Louisa Cnty. Code § 86-109 (use matrix; R-1, R-2, and RD).  See also id. §§ 86-13 (no manufactured-home accessory dwellings), 86-112 (primary-residence limit). ↩

15. Augusta Cnty. Bd. of Supervisors, Planning Comm’n, and Bd. of Zoning Appeals agendas, packets, and minutes, June 1 – Sept. 23, 2026. ↩

16. Augusta Cnty. Code §§ 25-125 (Rural Residential), 25-135 (Single Family), 25-454.4 (Village Mixed Use). ↩

17. Augusta Cnty. Code ch. 9 amendments (Bd. of Supervisors public hearing Sept. 23, 2026) (conforming local fees to DEQ regulations effective July 1, 2026). ↩

18. Va. Code Ann. §§ 15.2-2286(A)(4) (zoning administrator determinations), 15.2-2311 (appeal to the Board of Zoning Appeals within 30 days). ↩