Albemarle County, VA Home Business: Home Daycare (2026)

Sec. 56(a) lets a family day home caring for four or fewer children under 13, not counting the provider's own children or children who live in the home, operate as a plain single-family residential use with no zoning clearance at all. Once the count reaches five to twelve children, subsection (b) applies a full set of standards: additional traffic generated by the day home, apart from trips tied to the dwelling itself, cannot exceed 24 vehicle round trips per day, though the Board of Supervisors can waive that cap by special exception after weighing the impact on the neighborhood.

The operator must provide one on-site parking space plus one more for each employee, and the Zoning Administrator can require specific entrance and access improvements in consultation with the county engineer or VDOT. Every five-to-twelve-child home must hold and keep current licensure from the Virginia Department of Social Services and give the Zoning Administrator a copy; failing to produce that license is treated as willful noncompliance with the zoning ordinance in its own right. The Albemarle County fire official is authorized to conduct periodic inspections of the dwelling, and refusing to admit the fire official is likewise deemed willful noncompliance.

No such day home may start operating without a zoning clearance under Sec. 5, and abutting property owners get 30 days' written notice of the application; an unresolved written objection from a neighbor forces the operator into a special exception process under Sec. 9 before the county will approve the clearance.