Albemarle County, VA Fence Regulations: Retaining Walls (2026)

3(A) sets Albemarle's retaining wall standards, which apply to land disturbance establishing a use permitted by right or special use permit in the steep slopes overlay district, or to any grading requiring a soil erosion control and stormwater management plan. A single retaining wall can't exceed 10 feet in height, measured from grade to grade. Where the overall grade change would need more than 10 feet of retaining, the wall must be broken into multiple stepped walls rather than built as one tall wall. Each individual wall in a stepped system needs at least three feet of horizontal separation from the next, and that separation strip must be landscaped with screening shrubs planted on 10-foot centers, so the stepped walls read as a landscaped slope rather than a single tall barrier.

A retaining wall that's incorporated into the design of a building, becoming part of the structure itself, isn't subject to the 10-foot height cap at all. The Board of Supervisors can grant a special exception waiving or modifying the wall standards, but only for public improvements needing a linear corridor, roads, sidewalks, shared-use paths, or trails, where meeting the standard would require costly right-of-way acquisition, force an unsafe or ineffective redesign, or significantly raise maintenance costs. 3 sets companion standards for cut and fill slopes, capping grading at a 2:1 slope, or 3:1 if mowed, and requiring reverse-slope benches or surface water diversion once a 2:1 slope's vertical rise passes 20 feet.