Building Inspections at 202 East Main Street serves the county and the Town
Floyd County's permit desk is its Building Inspections department at 202 East Main Street, Floyd, VA 24091, with mail going to PO Box 218. The Contact Us block on the department page gives one phone, (540) 745-9359, and a fax, (540) 745-9305, with office hours of Monday to Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The page names Mark Bolt as Building Official and Patrick Turner as Building Inspector.
Three timing lines sit in the county's own paperwork. The department page says permits are not issued after 4:00 pm, the Building Permit Package puts normal processing time at 24 to 48 hours, and the department page says work must begin within six months of getting the building permit or the permit becomes invalid. Those are the county's words, not a promise about any one permit.
The department page lists what the office enforces: the Virginia Uniform Statewide Building Code and the codes it references, plus the county's Erosion Control, Manufactured Home and Subdivision ordinances. It also says the building official must approve plans and the permit application before a permit can be issued. That Subdivision Ordinance comes up again further down, because the county replaced it on January 1, 2026.
The permit checklist runs plans, well and septic, land disturbance, setbacks, parcel
Floyd County's Building Permit Package opens with a checklist of documents the county wants before it issues a building permit, and the order is the county's: building plans approved by the Building Official, approved well and septic documentation from the Floyd County Health Department, a signed Land Disturbance Form, plans that meet the setbacks the package prints, and, later in the package, an application for parcel approval. Two of those five carry a conflict between county documents, set out further down this page.
The Floyd County Health Department is a separate office, at 123 Parkview Rd NE in Floyd, phone (540) 745-2142, and the county's page for it says the office is closed on Wednesday. The well and septic approval on the checklist comes from that office, not from Building Inspections.
The application also asks a question a concrete job answers directly: whether the footings and the foundation wall are concrete, block or other.
The 911 address line on the permit form, and the May 2025 addressing change
Floyd County's building permit application, and its garage and carport application as well, print this in the property address block: "E911 will NOT be issued until a footing inspection is complete". Read alone, that line puts the footing inspection ahead of the permanent address on a new house or garage. The AEP guide inside the same county package says AEP does not need a 911 address to set up an application for new service, so the electric application is not held by it.
A newer county document reads differently. The county's address request form says that effective May 1, 2025, the Board of Supervisors revised an existing ordinance to change how the county issues permanent addresses. Among the things the form offers to address is a structure under construction that is the subject of a building permit, and beside that choice it says "Include this with your permit application." The form also offers an address for undeveloped property. The application forms carry no date, the address form does, and neither says which governs. County Administration at (540) 745-9300, where the address form goes back to, and Building Inspections at (540) 745-9359 can answer for a given build.
Driveway area counts toward the 10,000 square foot erosion line
Floyd County's department page says an erosion and sediment permit and plan are required before grading starts once 10,000 square feet or more of land is disturbed. The county's codified Chapter 54 leaves disturbed areas of less than 10,000 square feet out of what it treats as land disturbing activity. On this number the web page and the ordinance agree.
What goes into that total is where a concrete job shows up. The single family erosion agreement in the permit package says total land disturbance includes house, site, drive and septic, and the application's land-disturbed line names the driveway too, in a list of septic and well area, driveway and house site that ends open with etc. So a long new drive is counted in the same total as the house pad. Whether a particular job reaches 10,000 square feet, and whether it needs a plan or an agreement, is a question for Building Inspections, whose building inspector the county code makes the erosion and sediment inspector.
For a single family home, the department page says an agreement in lieu of a plan may stand in for an erosion and sediment plan. The agreement in the package carries its own clocks: disturbed areas left ungraded more than 30 days are to be temporarily mulched and seeded, permanent seeding is to go down within seven days after final grade, and the package says failure to comply within seven weekdays after notice from the county's Erosion and Sediment Control Inspector could result in a citation.
The county's codified Chapter 54 says an agency may not issue a grading or building permit for land disturbing activity unless the applicant submits an approved erosion and sediment control plan and certification that the plan will be followed. The county's E and S permit form asks for a Responsible Land Disturber and number, and for a type and amount of security.
What the July 2022 rates sheet charges, and what it leaves off
Floyd County's fee document is titled Department of Inspections Rates and reads effective 07-01-22, and the department page labels its fee links as of July 1st, 2022. Every figure below comes from that sheet, and none of it should be taken as today's price without asking the office. The Department of Inspections rates effective July 1, 2022 add a 2% state surcharge on all permits unless noted. The sheet prints its per square foot rates with a cent sign beside a decimal point, so this page does not turn them into dollars; the office can say what a given job comes to.
The sheet has no line for a driveway, a patio, a sidewalk or a slab on grade, and the county publishes no flatwork rule either way. That absence is not an exemption. The Building Official at (540) 745-9359 decides whether a flatwork job needs a county permit, and the statewide exemption lists are laid out in our Virginia concrete permits guide.
- Re-inspection: the Department of Inspections rates effective July 1, 2022 print a $25.00 fee for work not completed for inspection or not accessible on arrival.
- New residential: the same Department of Inspections sheet puts dwellings, additions, basements, carports, attached or detached garages, storage sheds and workshops on one line with a $150.00 minimum, and marks non-livable detached buildings under 256 square feet exempt.
- Retaining walls: the department's 2022 rates put retaining walls with over 4 feet of backfill on a line with a $50.00 minimum.
- Farm buildings: the department's 2022 rates say agricultural and farm buildings need a permit and pay no fee. The county issues that permit on its own farm building application, with an affidavit in which the applicant states the structure meets the farm structure exemption of the USBC, and the form says "a structure must be used for a specific purpose that is directly related to farming operations" to qualify.
Four more places one county paper prints something another does not
Beyond the 911 address, four more Floyd County lines disagree with another county line. This page settles none of them; each goes to the desk named beside it.
- Inspection notice. On the county's department page, an inspection is booked by phone on any weekday, every inspection needs 24 hours of notice, and none happens on the day of the call, and the permit package also prints 24 hour notification. A post on the county's news page, dated March 11, 2024, says the department "will only be conducting residential, commercial and erosion and sediment inspections on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays" and asks for requests 48 hours in advance. Building Inspections at (540) 745-9359 says which is current, and the statewide clock behind a request is covered under when footing inspections are scheduled.
- Erosion and sediment fee. The Department of Inspections rates effective July 1, 2022 print "Erosion & Sediment Control Plan Review $500.00" on the sheet's commercial building page. The county code's Appendix A, as codified in 2003, prints an erosion and sediment control plan administrative fee of 50.00 under Chapter 54. The two lines carry different names and sit in different places, nothing shows they are the same fee, and Building Inspections says which applies to a given job.
- Setbacks. The permit package prints 35 feet from the edge of roadways, state maintained and private, 60 feet from the center of the road, and 5 feet from structures and property lines for residential work. One definition in the Land Division Ordinance, in effect from January 1, 2026, describes a line 25 feet from the front property line on a public road or approved private division road, measured at 60 feet from centerline where the road is a prescriptive easement, and the same ordinance prints other front distances in other sections. They are measured from different lines. Building Inspections answers for the permit, and Floyd County Planning at (540) 745-9300 answers for the ordinance.
- Parcel approval. The package's parcel approval form asks for an approved plat of survey or subdivision plat, or proof the parcel was created legally before October 22, 2002, and says it checks conformity with the Floyd County Subdivision Ordinance. The county repealed that ordinance on November 18, 2025, and its Land Division Ordinance, effective January 1, 2026, conditions a building permit on the lot not having been created in violation of it or of any earlier county Subdivision Ordinance. Floyd County Planning says which proof it accepts now.
Inside the Town of Floyd: a zoning permit, a site plan and the same building official
For land outside the Town of Floyd's limits, Floyd County publishes no zoning ordinance. Its Code of Ordinances page lists its specific ordinances and plans, none of them a zoning ordinance, and the department's enforcement list names none either. The county's Comprehensive Plan, in its own words and at its own date, says "any type of use can occur on any parcel of land in Floyd County as determined by the buyer of that land", with parcels under conservation or scenic easements as the exception. That is the plan speaking at its own date, not a statement of today's rules.
The Town of Floyd is zoned. Its zoning ordinance, the 2024 file the Town Code page links as Appendix A, says the Zoning Administrator, appointed by Town Council, issues a zoning permit for a permitted use or alteration that conforms to the ordinance, and that the application comes with two copies of an acceptable site plan. The items that site plan shows include driveways and parking areas, and the ordinance requires a zoning permit to develop or redevelop off-street parking areas not part of an original development plan. So inside town, a new parking pad that was not part of an original development plan is a zoning permit question in its own right.
The same ordinance defines the Building Inspector as "The building official for the Town and the County", so building code work inside town limits still goes to the county department on East Main Street. For permits in town, the county's page links a Town Manager letter dated January 2, 2008 in which the Town "would like to review" building permit applications within Town boundaries. How that review runs now is a question for the Town Office at 203 E Oxford St., (540) 745-2565, open Monday to Friday, 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM. The Town's staff page names no Zoning Administrator, so ask there who holds that job too. Who handles erosion and sediment control inside town limits is not published, so ask Building Inspections and the Town Office together.
What Floyd prints for footings and slabs, and where road entrances go
Floyd County's department page prints its local design criteria in shorthand, and its "Frost Line Depth" entry is the bare number 18, with no unit mark after it, beside a ground snow load of 30 and a wind design speed of 115 mph with a 3 second gust. Ask the office what unit it means before a footing is dug to it. Code text on depth is taken up on the frost depth and footing codes page.
The county's 2021 Residential Code Change Update sheet reprints a requirement for a minimum 10 mil vapor retarder meeting ASTM E1745 Class A, with joints lapped not less than 6 inches, between a concrete floor slab and the base course or the prepared subgrade.
A driveway entrance onto a state road in Floyd County goes to VDOT's Christiansburg Residency at 105 Cambria St., Christiansburg, 540-381-7201, the same number the Town of Floyd gives for road and sidewalk questions. How that permit works belongs to the VDOT entrance permits guide. Marking buried lines before anyone digs is a separate process, with its own rules on 811 and utility locates.
Access, pasture, washout and weather on a Floyd job are not county paper, and the Floyd, Virginia service area page covers them.