Anoka County, MN Building Setbacks & Zoning: Lot Coverage Limits (2026)

Anoka County Ordinance No. 2022-1, Section 8.4.2.A, sets the county's actual lot-coverage limit for unincorporated shoreland property: the combined area of all buildings and impervious surfaces on a parcel may not exceed 25 percent of the total parcel area, or 25 percent of the buildable area, whichever produces the smaller allowance. "Impervious surface" is defined broadly in Section 2.5.23 as any constructed hard surface that prevents or retards water from entering the soil, expressly including rooftops, decks, sidewalks, patios, swimming pools, parking lots, and gravel, concrete, asphalt or paver driveways.

The cap applies only within shoreland, defined in Section 2.5.40 as land within 1,000 feet of a lake, pond or flowage's ordinary high water level, or 300 feet of a river or stream. Section 3.8 protects lots that were already built out past 25 percent before the ordinance's June 28, 2022 effective date as legal nonconformities, but Section 3.8.2 requires any addition or expansion of an existing nonconforming structure's outside dimensions to be reviewed for compliance rather than automatically grandfathered in. A landowner who cannot meet the 25 percent cap on a legally created lot may apply for a variance under Section 3.5, evaluated under Minn.

Stat. § 394.27 and Section 3.7's mitigation criteria, which weigh soil erosion, visibility from the water and adequacy of the sewage system before any relief is granted. The Public Health and Environmental Services Department administers and enforces the standard under Section 2.2.