Vanderburgh County, IN Environmental Rules: Boat Dock Permits (2026)

070(C) is the only dock-specific standard in the county's zoning code, and it sits inside the general accessory-uses section rather than in a stand-alone waterfront chapter. It permits a dock for noncommercial watercraft as an accessory use wherever the principal use is allowed, most relevantly along the Ohio River frontage and inland waterways in the W-R Waterfront Residential and W-I Waterfront Industrial districts listed in Table A. The projection limit is written as a choice between two caps, whichever is more restrictive on the site: a flat ten feet beyond the waterway, property, or bulkhead line, or ten percent of the width of the waterway itself.

On a narrow creek or inlet, the percentage cap will usually control and hold the dock closer to shore than the flat ten-foot figure would; on the wider Ohio River, the flat ten-foot limit is the one that typically binds. 070, including operating under the same ownership as the principal residence and remaining subordinate in purpose to it. The code does not set out a separate dock-permit fee schedule or application in Title 17; a property owner adding a dock works through the same Improvement Location Permit process the Area Plan Commission uses for other accessory structures, and any work below the ordinary high-water mark remains separately subject to state and federal waterway permitting outside this Title.