Florence County, SC Building Setbacks & Zoning: Lot Coverage Limits (2026)

Florence County's Table III, Sec. 30-30, sets a 'Max Impervious Surface Ratio (%)' column that functions as the county's lot-coverage cap for every zoning district in the unincorporated area. Impervious surface elsewhere in the ordinance is defined to include buildings, paved parking areas, driveways, roads, sidewalks, and any area finished in concrete or asphalt, plus anything else the zoning administrator determines does not absorb water. In the standard districts the ratio varies by density and use rather than simply by lot size: R-1, the largest-lot single-family district, caps coverage at 40 percent; R-2 allows 45 percent even on its smaller minimum lot; and the R-5 multi-family district allows up to 70 percent.

The RU-2 rural resource district runs the opposite direction, its Sec. 30-2 purpose being to protect land 'particularly agricultural' from urban encroachment, and Table III caps its coverage at just 20 percent, the lowest ratio anywhere in the ordinance. Business districts allow far more: B-1 limited business tops out at 70 percent, and B-4 central commercial, the county's most urban downtown district built lot-line to lot-line, carries no minimum lot area at all and is permitted up to 100 percent impervious coverage. A separate dimensional standards table for the county's newer townhouse and mixed-use districts, Sec.

5(c), sets its own ratios: 45 percent in the TH townhouse district, 70 percent in the MR and MMF districts, 80 percent in MU, and 90 percent in both CMU and FO/LI.