Portsmouth, VA Sidewalk & Pedestrian Rules: Encroachment Permits (2026)

Sec. 32-7 defines an encroachment broadly: a foundation, awning, fire escape, shutter, sign, cornice, gutter, downspout, bay window, fence or other appurtenance built in, upon or over a city street, alley or right-of-way. Anything that encroached before August 24, 1976 is presumed to hold a revocable permit already, which the city manager can pull at will. For new work, the owner submits a written application explaining the need for the encroachment along with its design and materials, plus a site plan from a professional engineer showing the structure and surrounding physical features, boundaries, utilities and distances.

Someone seeking to legalize an existing, unpermitted encroachment instead submits a physical survey. New encroachments go through the traffic engineer, the department of planning and community services, the law department and the city engineer before approval; retroactive permits for existing encroachments need only the traffic engineer and city engineer to sign off. Every permit requires the owner to indemnify the city against injury or damage claims tied to the structure and to defend the city in any resulting suit. The city manager can set and periodically revise a uniform fee schedule for these applications.

One narrow carve-out exists: A-frame or T-frame sidewalk signs in the T4, T5 and T6 subdistricts of the downtown D-1 zoning district are not treated as encroachments at all if they are unattached to the sidewalk, no taller than 42 inches, no more than eight square feet per face, unlit, placed directly in front of the advertised business, and limited to one sign per building frontage.