Surry County, NC Fence Regulations: Retaining Walls (2026)

Surry County's flood damage prevention chapter, adopted by the Board of Commissioners on April 17, 2023, treats retaining walls the same as fences, sidewalks and driveways when they sit inside a mapped floodway or non-encroachment area (NEA): under Section 154.017-07(I)(2), any retaining wall, sidewalk or driveway that places fill inside a regulated floodway or NEA must meet the chapter's floodway limitations. Those limitations, at Section 154.017-10(B)(1), bar any encroachment, including fill, unless a registered North Carolina professional engineer performs a hydrologic and hydraulic no-rise analysis showing the wall will not increase base flood elevations, and submits that certification and supporting technical data to the Floodplain Administrator before a floodplain development permit is issued.

The Zoning Administrator serves as Floodplain Administrator and reviews the permit application alongside the standard zoning permit required under Section 154.017-03. Floodways carry extra restrictions beyond ordinary flood-hazard areas: Section 154.017-10 also bars new manufactured homes except as replacements, reflecting how hazardous these mapped channels are considered. A homeowner or contractor who skips the certification and builds anyway is in violation of Chapter 154 generally, not just the floodplain subchapter, because Section 154.005-10 makes any construction without required approvals unlawful. The Zoning Administrator can issue a written notice of violation describing the problem and the required fix, and a violator who disputes the finding has 30 days to appeal to the Board of Adjustment under Section 154.005-05(C).

Because a floodway retaining wall touches both zoning and flood-hazard rules, homeowners should confirm with the Planning and Development Department whether their parcel falls inside a mapped floodway or NEA before starting work, since the engineering-certification requirement does not apply outside those mapped zones.