Our yard is at 5567 Elk Horn Rd in Woodlawn, which is Carroll County, Virginia. Every container we sell or rent leaves from inside this county line, so of all the counties we write about, this is the one we have the least excuse to get wrong.
Here is the short version. As of this writing Carroll County has not adopted a countywide zoning ordinance. A draft one exists, it has been through joint meetings between the Board of Supervisors and the Planning Commission, and the county publishes it with a plain warning that the draft documents are preliminary and do not represent a final adopted ordinance or zoning map. Nothing in that draft is law yet.
What that means for a container on rural Carroll County land is that the county zoning question mostly is not there to answer. The building code question still is, and the answer to it has been the same for years. This page walks both, tells you which office to call, and is honest about the part that is still moving.
We are not reading this county out of a code book
The Woodlawn yard sits in Carroll County, a few minutes west of Hillsville on US-58. Our sales lot on East Lee Highway is in Wytheville, which is Wythe County, a different county with a different situation. People mix the two up because they find us both ways, so it is worth saying plainly: the yard, the containers, and the modification shop are all in Carroll County.
That matters for a practical reason beyond credibility. Our free delivery and leveling radius is measured in road miles from the Woodlawn yard, so anywhere in Carroll County is close. Hillsville is about 8 road miles out. Galax is about 15. A container going to a Carroll County address is one of the shortest runs the truck makes.
What it means that the county has not adopted zoning
Virginia does not require a county to adopt zoning. It allows one to. Carroll County has historically operated without a countywide zoning ordinance, which is sometimes described locally as land use being by right: if the use is not otherwise regulated, the landowner may do it without asking a zoning office first.
For a storage container on private acreage the practical effect has been that there is no county zoning district to check, no permitted-use table to read against, and no accessory-structure setback in a county ordinance to measure to. That is genuinely simpler than most of the counties we deliver into.
Simpler is not the same as unregulated. Several things still apply to a Carroll County property regardless of whether the county ever adopts zoning:
- Recorded deed restrictions and subdivision covenants, which are private agreements enforced by neighbors, developers, and homeowner associations rather than by the county
- Easements, rights of way, and utility corridors crossing the parcel, which you should never set a container on top of
- Floodplain and wetland rules, which come from federal and state programs rather than from county zoning
- The county's own subdivision regulations, which govern dividing land rather than placing something on it
- Town limits, which are a separate jurisdiction with their own rules
That last one catches people. The Town of Hillsville is inside Carroll County geographically but is its own government with its own planning commission, zoning board of appeals, subdivision ordinance, and comprehensive plan. A property with a Hillsville mailing address is not automatically inside the town limits, and a property that is inside them is under the town's rules, not the county's silence.
Why a zoning ordinance is being drafted now
The reason the question is live is data centers. Without a zoning ordinance, the county's own attorney explained at a June 2026 joint meeting of the Board of Supervisors and the Planning Commission that if sufficient electrical power is already in place at a location, a data center could potentially be built almost anywhere in the county on a building permit alone.
The legal backdrop is that Virginia is a Dillon Rule state. As County Attorney Stephan Durbin put it at that meeting, for any ordinance a local government might adopt, it has to be able to point to where the General Assembly gave it the authority to regulate. A county cannot invent a power it was never granted, which is why the fix has to take the form of a real ordinance rather than a policy statement.
The Planning Commission's draft responds to that specific pressure. It would restrict data centers to industrial zones and require a conditional use permit with requirements attached for noise, water usage, lighting, and setbacks. The motive is worth understanding, because it tells you where the drafting attention has gone: large industrial development, not somebody's storage box.
Where the draft actually stands today
No ordinance has been adopted. The county publishes the draft zoning ordinance and draft map on the Planning Commission's page with an explicit disclaimer that these draft documents are preliminary and do not represent the final adopted ordinance or zoning map.
County officials have said zoning will not be adopted without public hearings and educational sessions first. The Planning Commission holds public hearings, takes comment, and forwards its recommendations to the Board of Supervisors, which makes the final decision. That is a sequence with several visible steps left in it.
If you want to watch it rather than take our word for the state of it, the Planning Commission meets the third Thursday of each month at 6:00 p.m. in the Board Meeting Room at the Carroll County Governmental Complex, unless the county calendar says otherwise. Meetings are the primary source. This page is a summary of one.
We will keep this page current as the process moves, because we are one of the businesses it applies to.
The state building code applies whether the county zones or not
Zoning and building code are two different questions, and the building code question in Carroll County is settled and statewide. Virginia's Uniform Statewide Building Code contains an exemption list, and 13VAC5-63-20 section 102.3, Exemptions, item 11 covers shipping containers used for storage. A container being used as storage is exempt from the building code.
The exemption is about use, not about the steel. Leave the box as a locked storage unit and it stays exempt. Convert it into something people occupy, with conditioned space, wiring, plumbing, and habitable rooms, and you have moved outside what that item covers and into a building permit conversation with the county's Building Official.
We take that line seriously in our own shop. We build modifications in Woodlawn, and on any package with power we rough in the electrical only. A licensed electrician does the final hookup and the inspection. We do not pull permits on a customer's behalf.
Read the state-level detail on our Virginia container permit guide, which walks the exemption language and the storage-versus-occupancy line in full.
The two Carroll County offices worth a phone call
Both live at the same address, and between them they answer nearly every question a container buyer here actually has.
Land Use and Planning
Ronald Newman is the Land Use and Planning Coordinator. The office handles subdivision compliance and plat approval, manufactured home park development, and coordination with the Board of Supervisors and the Planning Commission. It is the right call for anything about how your land is classified or divided, and for the status of the draft ordinance.
- 605-1 Pine Street, Hillsville, VA 24343
- (276) 730-3008
- Open 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday
The Building Official's Office
Same building, different desk. This is the office for the building permit question, which is the one that comes up the moment a container stops being storage and starts being a room.
- 605-1 Pine Street, Hillsville, VA 24343
- (276) 730-3016
- Open 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday
In this county, access is the real constraint
Because the paperwork side is thin here, the thing that actually decides whether a delivery goes smoothly in Carroll County is the ground. This is Blue Ridge country. Driveways are steep, gravel gets soft after a wet week, and a lot of the good building spots are at the top of something.
A tilt-bed delivery needs room to back in, room to slide the container off, and a reasonably firm, reasonably level spot to leave it on. What we look at before quoting:
- A straight approach with enough length to line the trailer up, ideally 60 to 100 feet clear beyond the drop spot
- Ground that holds a loaded truck, not soft fill or fresh soil
- Overhead clearance, so low limbs and service lines are not in the way
- A pad that is close to level, since the doors on an out-of-level container fight you every time you open them
- Gate and turn widths, which on older farm entrances are often the tightest part of the whole trip
If you are not sure your spot works, describe it on the phone. We have been delivering into this county long enough to know most of the roads, and the honest answer is sometimes that we should look before we promise.
Our delivery preparation guide covers the site checklist in detail, and the foundation guide covers what to set it on.
What this means if you are ready to order
For most Carroll County properties, a storage container is a short conversation. There is no countywide zoning permit to apply for today, the state building code exempts storage use in writing, and the delivery is a local run for us.
The three things worth doing before you order: check your deed for private restrictions, confirm whether your address is inside a town's limits, and pick a spot the truck can actually reach.
After that it is the ordinary decision. A used cargo-worthy 20-ft starts around $3,200 delivered inside our free zone and a 40-ft starts around $4,900, or you can rent from $165 a month for a 20-ft and $235 for a 40-ft. Every container we sell or rent comes with the lockbox already welded on, so security is not a line item you have to add.
Not sure which way to go? Our buy versus rent guide lays out where the two cost lines cross.