Across unincorporated Henry County, the county's zoning ordinance, Chapter 21, decides where a container may sit, and an amendment the Board of Supervisors approved on July 28, 2026 adds "shipping containers" to the A-1 Agricultural district's list of uses with a building code proviso, in a change the county's own minutes call container homes; inside the City of Martinsville or the Town of Ridgeway, the city or the town decides.
Three passages of local law frame the same steel box differently. The county's July A-1 text defines a shipping container by its use in moving goods by sea, rail or road; the accessory item in the R-R, M-R, S-R, B-3 and B-2 districts leaves highway vehicles and their portions out of accessory uses unless the use is defined as a temporary use; and Martinsville's definitions keep shipping containers out of the accessory class. For a box that will only ever hold storage, that is why the answer has to come from the desk for your parcel.
Martinsville is an independent city and the Town of Ridgeway zones its own land, so settle by parcel number whether the ground is county, town or city before you order.
Chapter 21 divides the unincorporated county into districts
Henry County's zoning ordinance is Chapter 21 of the county code, and Sec. 21-200 divides "the unincorporated territory of the County" into districts, among them A-1 Agricultural, R-R Rural Residential, M-R Mixed Residential, S-R Suburban Residential, B-3 Office and Professional, B-2 Neighborhood Commercial, B-1 General Commercial, the I-2 and I-1 industrial districts and G-S Government and Special Use. The county's Department of Planning, Zoning and Inspection administers it, from rezonings and special use permits to variances.
The online copy can lag the Board. As read on September 27, 2026, Municode carried Supplement 57, codified through an ordinance of June 24, 2025, and listed the Ordinance of 07-28-2026(1) as pending codification, so its pages for A-1, R-R, M-R, S-R and B-1 can show wording the Board voted to change on July 28. Ask Planning & Zoning for the current text of any section you mean to rely on.
A-1 item 6 lists shipping containers with mobile and manufactured homes
As the Board approved it on July 28, 2026, item 6 of the A-1 Agricultural district's use list reads, whole: "Individual mobile homes and/or manufactured homes, and shipping containers (a large reusable container primarily used for transporting good across different modes of transport, such as by sea, rail, or road) provided that they comply with the current Virginia Uniform Statewide Building Code." Before that vote, the codified item read only "Individual mobile homes and/or manufactured homes."
We searched every chapter of the codified county code and the 2026 amendments and found the words shipping containers in that item and nowhere else in Chapter 21. The county's own papers describe the change as housing: the Planning Commission's staff report, the public hearing notice and the Board's July 28 minutes all say container homes, and the minutes put it in one line: "Container homes were added as allowed in agricultural zones."
That leaves a storage buyer with questions we found no answer to in the text: is a box that will only ever hold feed, tools or stock a shipping container under item 6, and what does the building code proviso ask of it? Put both to Henry County Planning & Zoning at 276-634-4620 before you order for an A-1 parcel, and treat item 6 as an open question, not a green light.
The July 2026 amendment and the accessory caps, district by district
If the Zoning Administrator treats a container as an accessory structure, the district's accessory item sets the first terms. For R-R, M-R and S-R, the text the Board approved on July 28, 2026 reads: "The total floor area of all accessory structures shall be less than seventy-five (75) percent of that of the principal structure." The same amendment removes B-1's cap.
| District | Accessory item | Floor-area cap |
|---|---|---|
| A-1 | No manufactured or mobile homes; three-foot line | None in the item |
| R-R, M-R, S-R | Accessory front setback at least the main structure's; three-foot line; no manufactured or mobile homes | Under 75 percent, all accessory structures together (50 percent in the codified text) |
| B-3, B-2 | The same conditions, as codified | Under 50 percent, all together |
| B-1 | No manufactured or mobile homes | Removed by the July 28, 2026 amendment |
| I-2, I-1, G-S | Accessory uses and structures, with no condition in the item | None in the item |
The three-foot line reads: "No accessory building may be closer than three (3) feet to any property line." We found no 2026 amendment to the B-3 or B-2 lists. A blank in an item is not a blank in the ordinance; the front setback line and the floodplain article still apply.
Every base district's setback section also puts the front setback line "thirty-five (35) feet from any street right-of-way" that is 50 feet wide or wider, or 60 feet from the centerline of a narrower right-of-way, and says no structure shall be "constructed or placed" closer to the front property line than that line.
Before you call, have the floor area of the house and of every shed and garage already on the lot, and a sketch of where the box would sit. The caps count every accessory structure on the lot together, so what already stands there uses up part of the total.
A highway-vehicle clause sits in R-R, M-R, S-R, B-3 and B-2
R-R, M-R, S-R, B-3 and B-2 end their accessory item with a clause worth reading slowly: "Unless such use is defined as a temporary use, accessory uses and structures shall not include buses, trailer sections of tractor-trailer combinations or any other vehicle or portion thereof designed to transport people or goods on highways."
The clause does not use the word container, but the county's July text describes shipping containers as "primarily used for transporting good across different modes of transport, such as by sea, rail, or road." Whether a box on your lot is "any other vehicle or portion thereof designed to transport people or goods on highways" is the Zoning Administrator's reading, and we found no section of Chapter 21 that settles it.
The exception turns on temporary uses, which Chapter 21 defines as prospective uses "intended for a limited duration" of time "and at an appropriate location as determined by the Zoning Administrator." Temporary uses appear by name in the A-1, R-R, B-1 and I-2 use lists, and we found them in no other base district's list, M-R, S-R, B-3 and B-2 included, so ask the Zoning Administrator what the exception means there.
A rental fits a job with an end date. Containers Delivered rents 20-ft and 40-ft boxes month to month with no contract, and pickup inside the free zone costs nothing, so tell the county what the project is and when it should finish, not just the box size.
A building permit section in Chapter 21, and a floodplain rule that counts storage
Sec. 21-207 says "No buildings or structures shall be erected, reconstructed, altered, or enlarged without" a building permit from the county Building Inspector, as the code names the post; the application carries two copies of a scale drawing of the parcel, and the permit is issued only after the Zoning Administrator concurs. Virginia's building code exempts a container used for storage, as the Virginia container permit guide explains, and we found no line in Sec. 21-207 on how the two meet; that is Henry County Building Inspection's call, at 276-634-4615.
The floodplain article, Chapter 14, Article I of the county code, defines development to include "storage of equipment or materials," and says all uses, activities and development "occurring within any floodplain district" shall "be undertaken only upon the issuance of a building permit." By ordinance the Building Inspector makes the initial call on where the district lines fall, and a dispute goes to the Henry County Building Inspection Board of Appeals.
So a parcel with a creek or a low field on it is a call to Building Inspection first: ask whether any of the lot sits in a floodplain district and what the county needs before anything is stored there. What standing water does to the steel is covered in the floodplain placement answer.
The Town of Ridgeway runs its own zoning desk
Ridgeway is an incorporated town in Henry County with its own charter, and it zones its own land. The town's site describes a Board of Zoning Appeals "dedicated to ensuring the fair and consistent application of the Town's zoning ordinances" and a Planning Commission that reviews rezonings, conditional and special use permits, subdivision plats and site development plans; it posts a rezoning process effective September 9, 2025, and its council minutes record a town Zoning Administrator. For zoning, a parcel inside the town limits answers to the town, not to Chapter 21.
We found no copy of the town's zoning ordinance on its website, and nothing published on who issues building permits within town limits, so put both questions to the Town office in one call.
Martinsville's definition keeps shipping containers out of the accessory class
The Martinsville delivery page covers the drive and why an independent city sets its own rules; this section reads the ordinance. Martinsville's zoning ordinance, Appendix B of the City Code, names shipping containers in one place we could find, its definition of an accessory use or structure, which lists shipping containers, trailers, manufactured or mobile homes, vehicle bodies and similar containers and says none of them shall be "classified as accessory structures."
That is a definition, not a placement rule, and we found no other section of Appendix B naming shipping, cargo or storage containers. So ask the city what a container on your lot is if it is not an accessory structure, and what the city needs before one is set. Community Development, whose Building Official and Zoning Administrator is at 276-403-5171, lists a Zoning Clearance Form, and the city's Planning & Zoning page says staff "is ready and able to answer questions you may have before you start your next project."
Which desk answers for your parcel, and what to ask it
Start with the parcel number, not the mailing address. Henry County's GIS page warns that "Any zoning information obtained from this site must first be verified by calling the Department of Planning, Zoning, and Inspections at (276)-634-4620," and it points city questions to Martinsville's own GIS site.
| Desk | Where | Phone | Ask about |
|---|---|---|---|
| Henry County Planning & Zoning | Administration Building, Room #205, 3300 Kings Mountain Road, Martinsville, VA 24112 | 276-634-4620 | The district, A-1 item 6, the vehicle clause, temporary use, the caps; ask here for the Zoning Administrator |
| Henry County Building Inspection | Same building, plus an online Building Inspection Portal | 276-634-4615 | Sec. 21-207 and the floodplain lines; ask for the Building Official |
| Town of Ridgeway office | 806 Main St, Ridgeway, VA 24148; Mondays 3:00 pm to 6:00 pm, Tuesday to Friday 10:00 am to 1:00 pm | (276) 956-2328 | Town zoning, and who issues building permits in town |
| City of Martinsville Community Development | 55 W Church Street, Room 217, Martinsville, VA 24112 | 276-403-5171 | Zoning clearance, and what a container is under the city ordinance |
Henry County's hearing notices say files can be viewed in the Department of Planning, Zoning & Inspection from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday.
County lines work the same way. A parcel that turns out to sit in Patrick County or Franklin County is outside Henry's rules altogether, and each county has its own guide on this site: the Patrick County permit guide and the Franklin County permit guide.