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

Greenwood County Code Sec. 6-3-36(d) lays out a development standards table for the R-5 multi-family residential district that assigns different numeric limits to different housing types built in the same zone. Under the table's 'Maximum impervious surface ratio' row, a single-family detached residence, a zero lot line residence, a patio/atrium home, and a duplex residence all carry no impervious cap (N/A), but a townhouse lot is capped at 50 percent impervious coverage, and a multiplex, apartment building, or any other use in the district is capped at 60 percent.

Impervious surface is separately defined in Sec. 6-3-221 to include buildings, parking areas, driveways, roads, sidewalks and any other concrete or asphalt surface, plus anything else the zoning administrator determines does not absorb rainwater, and the ratio itself is the total impervious area on a site divided by the base site area. The same table sets the R-5 district's other dimensional standards side by side with the impervious cap, including a 20-foot minimum front yard setback across every housing type and a uniform 35-foot maximum building height, so a developer sizing an apartment building's footprint has to satisfy the 60 percent impervious ceiling at the same time as the setback and height lines in the identical table.