Surry County, NC Building Setbacks & Zoning: Setback Rules (2026)

Surry County's Planning and Development Department applies two different setback frameworks depending on zoning district. Conventional districts, including RA, RE, RR, RL, RG, MR, MHP, CB, HB, RB and MI, use the fixed front, side and rear yard minimums in the § 154.006-15 dimensional table, which vary by district and by whether a lot is a corner lot or holds only an accessory structure. The Village of Rockford (VR) District, created to preserve the Rockford National Register Historic District under G.S. §§ 160D-703(a) and 160D-702(b)(2), instead uses a form-based approach set out in § 154.006-22(E).

There, a front yard cannot sit closer to the street than the average setback of the principal buildings on the same block and same side of the street within 1,000 feet in either direction, so new construction lines up with what already exists. That average is bounded on both ends: the front setback can never be less than eight feet no matter how close neighboring buildings sit, and a building is never required to set back more than 40 feet even if neighboring setbacks average deeper.

The rear yard in the VR District has a flat minimum of 25 feet, and where a lot runs through from one street to another, the front-yard rule applies on both street frontages rather than treating the second frontage as an ordinary rear yard. All VR buildings must still meet § 154.006-15's baseline dimensional requirements except where § 154.006-22(E) specifically carves out an exception, so the historic-district rule layers on top of, rather than replacing, the countywide table.