Prince William County, VA Animal Ordinances: Veterinary Clinic Zoning (2026)

The county's Zoning Ordinance treats a veterinary hospital as a distinct land use rather than folding it into general retail or medical categories. Under Sec. 04, item 35, a veterinary hospital is one of the uses the Board of County Supervisors will consider in the A-1 Agricultural district only through a Special Use Permit, the same discretionary process used for kennels, cemeteries, and racetracks in that district; the SUP requires a public hearing and site-specific conditions before the Board approves it, and any commercial use in A-1, including an approved veterinary hospital, must also secure a site plan under Sec.

07 before construction begins. Move the same use into a business or industrial district and the calculus flips: Secs. 31 (B-3, Convenience Retail) all list veterinary hospital as a use permitted by right, as do the heavy and light industrial districts under Secs. 21, and the county's Mixed Use Districts under Secs. 31. The Office Low-Rise district treats it as a special use instead, per Sec. 13. Part 100 of the Zoning Ordinance defines a veterinary hospital as a facility for the prevention, cure or alleviation of disease and injury in animals, including surgery, a broad definition that covers routine exam rooms as well as surgical suites. 2, Chapter 22; the county cannot regulate veterinary hospitals through any mechanism the state has not delegated to it.