Rowan County, NC Business Licensing & Operations: Auto Repair on Residential Property (2026)

Sec. 21-244 regulates junked motor vehicles kept outdoors in the RA, RR and RS districts, generally requiring 30-foot side setbacks, 80-foot road setbacks, a front-yard prohibition and full concealment for anything beyond five vehicles outside an enclosed building. Subsection (2)b carves out a narrow exception: the repair of no more than one motor vehicle per household for personal use is exempt from the location, screening, concealment and setback requirements of the chapter. That means a single vehicle being worked on for the household's own use does not have to sit 30 feet off the property line, does not need a tarpaulin or screening, and can be worked on without counting toward the five-vehicle outdoor cap, provided it still does not amount to a health or safety nuisance as defined in Sec.

21-4. The exemption is limited to personal use by the household; a resident who repairs vehicles for other people for pay is operating a business use rather than exercising this exemption, and Sec. 21-113's Table of Uses would instead classify that activity under motor vehicle repair services, which carries its own district and special-use requirements in the nonresidential SIC categories rather than the residential exemption in Sec. 21-244(2)b.