Eight amendments to the Code of Virginia took effect July 1, 2026, changing how localities handle applications involving data centers, manufactured housing, transit-area parking, solar facilities, battery storage, and wireless infrastructure. Fairfax County states the consequence in writing on its 2026 Code of Virginia Updates page: the amendments apply as dictated by the General Assembly regardless of whether the Zoning Ordinance has been amended to address them. The County held public information sessions on July 21 and 22, 2026, but no public hearings have been scheduled, so the gap is open-ended.

That gap creates two risks, and most coverage addresses only one. A team working from the current Ordinance may encounter unscoped requirements during review. Less obviously, several of these amendments confer entitlements rather than impose burdens, and a team that has not read the statute may fail to claim what the law now gives it. Each amendment below is described from the codified section, and each is narrower than a one-line summary suggests.

What Changed

Data centers. HB 153 and SB 94 create § 15.2-2209.5. This is commonly called a noise study requirement for data centers, and both halves of that are imprecise. It applies to a "high energy use facility," meaning one the applicant reasonably anticipates at filing will require 100 megawatts or more of retail electrical service. Below that threshold, the state mandate does not apply, though the County's 2024 data center standards still do. For covered facilities the locality must require a site assessment of the sound profile on residential units and schools within 500 feet of the property boundary, and may extend it to water resources, agricultural resources, parks, registered historic sites, and forestland. Critically, the locality must also require the serving electric utility to submit a form describing substations and anticipated transmission voltage, putting utility coordination on the approval critical path. Subsection F exempts expansions of already approved facilities that do not add 100 megawatts or more.

Manufactured housing. HB 655 and SB 346 amend § 15.2-2290. In all districts other than the agricultural districts covered by subsection A, where site-built housing is allowed, localities must permit manufactured homes that are (i) converted to real property under § 46.2-653.1, (ii) issued a certificate of occupancy within five years of the data plate manufacture date, and (iii) placed on individual lots, subject to standards equivalent to site-built single-family dwellings in the same district. Local historic authority under §§ 10.1-2206.1 and 15.2-2306 is preserved, and private restrictive covenants operate independently of zoning. The County describes HB 1463 as addressing open lots in nonconforming manufactured home parks.

Transit-area parking. HB 888 creates § 15.2-2209.4, the most valuable of the eight for residential applicants. It does not set new minimums; it sets ceilings on the minimums a locality may require. Within a "designated area," meaning any parcel within one-half mile of the entrance to a mass transit station or facility (expressly including bus rapid transit, excluding microtransit and charter service), a locality may not require more than one-half space per unit for multifamily or mixed-use residential, or one space per unit for one-family, two-family, and townhouse development. Two further provisions are easy to miss. A locality above 600,000 population, which in Northern Virginia means Fairfax County alone, may exceed those caps near a locality-managed bus stop only if its ordinance provides an administrative reduction of at least 25 percent within 1,000 feet. And every locality above 20,000 population must establish an administrative process allowing a reduction of at least 20 percent for projects outside any designated area, which is an affirmative tool for sites nowhere near transit.

Solar. SB 347 and HB 711 amend § 15.2-2288.8, which reaches only a ground-mounted facility of one megawatt or more designed to serve load on property other than the project site. Rooftop and on-site generation are outside it. Covered projects require a special exception, unless permitted by right, or a siting agreement under § 15.2-2316.7, and the section prescribes detailed criteria, several expressed as numerical ranges the locality selects within by ordinance. A nonparticipating owner may waive setbacks in writing.

Battery storage. HB 891 and SB 443 add § 15.2-2316.10, the amendment most likely to be overstated. It does not make storage accessory to solar generally. It applies only on a parcel already subject to an approved special exception for a solar facility, only within that parcel's boundaries, and only where rated storage capacity does not exceed 100 percent of the solar facility's nameplate generating capacity. Where those conditions are met, no special exception or other local land use approval is required. Everything else remains local: Fairfax adopted Zoning Ordinance Amendment 112.2-2026-18, Large-Scale Battery Energy Storage Systems, on March 17, 2026, and any project outside the narrow accessory pathway is analyzed under it.

Wireless. HB 277 updates the standards for modifying existing wireless support structures and HB 876 addresses temporary structures through administrative permit or Board approval. "By right" is workable shorthand, but § 15.2-2316.4:4 is more precisely a mandatory approval process for qualifying modifications with defined documentation limits and a statutory review period. Confirm those against the section before relying on a shortened timeline.

Which Law Governs a Pending Application

"Confirm with your planner" is sound practice but not an analysis. Four points frame it, and none produces a categorical answer. Section 1-239 preserves accrued rights while requiring that later proceedings conform, so far as practicable, to the law in force at the time. Vested rights under § 15.2-2307 require a significant affirmative governmental act, good faith reliance, and substantial expenditure, which a filed but undecided rezoning ordinarily is not. § 15.2-2261(C) protects an approved plat or final site plan from later local changes but expressly excepts changes required to comply with state law, so an approved plan does not automatically insulate a project. And where the General Assembly wanted grandfathering this session it wrote it: § 15.2-2288.9(I) exempts applications filed before July 1, 2026, and none of these eight amendments contains a comparable clause. That absence weighs against automatic exemption without resolving every case.

For the highest-exposure category, treat the site assessment as likely required for a pending 100-megawatt facility rather than likely excused, confirm applicable standards in writing with the assigned planner, and preserve the correspondence.

What to Do

For pending applications, identify which amendments touch your use category and raise them affirmatively rather than receiving them as deficiencies, and begin utility coordination now for any high energy use facility. In predevelopment, read the codified sections rather than summaries, and run the § 15.2-2209.4 analysis to determine designated-area status and the applicable cap or reduction process. For acquisitions, add a current-law review beyond the printed Ordinance, since parking status, manufactured housing rights on adjoining parcels, and the solar and storage thresholds all affect use rights and feasibility. The County's contact for the pending amendment is Austin Gastrell in the Zoning Administration Division (703-324-1314). The amendment page carries the legislation text, the Board memo, and the HB 888 tier map; the recently adopted amendments page carries the March 2026 battery storage ordinance.

The lag between a state effective date and a conforming local ordinance is a familiar feature of this market and a recurring source of avoidable risk. Two habits reduce it: read the codified section rather than the summary, and check whether an amendment gives something before assuming it only takes something away. Several of these give quite a lot.

Please contact Andrew Gregg at 703.284.7254 or agregg@beankinney.com with questions about how the 2026 Code of Virginia updates may affect a pending or planned project in Northern Virginia.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not contain or convey legal advice. Consult a lawyer. Any views or opinions expressed herein are those of the author and are not necessarily the views of any client.