Fairfax County, VA · Fairfax County Zoning Ordinance
PRC permits the development of planned communities on a minimum of 750 contiguous acres under an approved comprehensive and development plan (overall max density 13 persons/acre, designated low/medium/high). Reston is the prominent PRC example. Permitted uses and development standards are set by the approved plan, not fixed base-zone numbers. Section 2105.3.
Development standards in PRC
Maximum FAR
Set by the approved development plan for this property — see 2105
Maximum height
Set by the approved development plan for this property — see 2105
Minimum lot size
Set by the approved development plan for this property — see 2105
Maximum FAR, Maximum height and Minimum lot size are set by the approved development plan for this property. This is a planned district: the ordinance does not set one figure for the whole district, and those plans differ from property to property, so no single number would be true here. The section that says the plan governs is cited on each row above. For the plan that applies to a specific property, ask Fairfax County.
Read from Fairfax County Zoning Ordinance, effective through 2026-07-01. We last checked with the publisher on 2026-09-14 and found nothing newer -- a check on that date, not a promise about today.
How complete is this market? Across 239,083 parcels we answer 96.1% of the 6 questions this site is built to answer, each with a source you can check. The rest are shown as “not recorded” rather than filled in — we would rather be short than wrong. A further 13,550 properties inside the county line are zoned by an incorporated town with its own ordinance, not by the county, so this county ordinance does not govern them and they are not counted above or below — which is why we publish this market as Fairfax County (excl. Vienna and Herndon). Look one of those up and we will tell you which town governs it.
Permitted uses in PRC
ConditionalGoverned by approved development plan This is a planned district: its permitted uses are set by the approved development plan for the parcel, not by a base-zone list (Sect. 2105).
"Conditional" means the use generally requires a public hearing or special-exception approval — a very different timeline and risk profile from a by-right permit.
This is the zone. What about the parcel?
Zone rules are the starting point — the answer for a specific property also depends on lot
size, overlays, existing improvements and site conditions. Run a free address lookup to see
what applies to one property.