Horry County Zoning Ordinance: Districts, Variances & Appeals

The Horry County zoning ordinance, codified as Appendix B of the County Code, controls what you can build and how you can use any parcel in the unincorporated county. It sorts land into districts, sets the allowed uses and dimensions for each, and defines the paths — rezoning, variance, special exception, or appeal — that let you ask for something the base rules don’t permit. The Planning and Zoning Department administers it day to day, and the authority behind it comes from the South Carolina Local Government Comprehensive Planning Enabling Act of 1994.¹²

Finding Your District and What It Allows

Every parcel sits in one district, and the district is where any question about the property starts. Horry County’s districts are more granular than a simple residential-commercial-industrial split. Agricultural districts run from AG1 through AG7, with additional forest and conservation categories. Single-family residential districts are organized by minimum lot size (SF40 down to SF6), with a parallel MSF series that permits manufactured housing. Multi-residential districts (MRD-1, MRD-2, MRD-3) allow apartments and townhomes at rural, suburban, and urban densities. Commercial land is split among neighborhood, community, and highway retail categories plus resort and amusement designations that reflect the county’s tourism economy, and industrial land falls into limited, heavy, and three manufacturing tiers. A Planned Development District (PDD) offers a custom, mixed-use option under a unified plan.³⁴

Some listed districts are marked “retired.” They still govern the parcels already zoned that way, but you can’t rezone into them.⁵

Once you know the district, the ordinance’s use tables in Section 204 tell you whether a specific activity is allowed there. Each cell pairs a use with a district and carries a letter code:

P means permitted by right, subject to the ordinance’s other requirements.
C means conditional — allowed, but with additional use-specific rules listed in the table.
SE means special exception — you need Board of Zoning Appeals approval before you can proceed.
T means temporary use under defined conditions.
A blank cell means the use isn’t allowed in that district.

If a use isn’t listed anywhere, the Zoning Administrator decides whether it fits an existing category or is close enough to a defined use to be treated the same way. That interpretation can be appealed.⁵

Lot Size, Setbacks, and Density Limits

Even where a use is permitted, the ordinance’s dimensional standards in Section 205 control how big the building can be, where it sits on the lot, and how many units fit per acre.

Multi-residential density caps at three units per acre in MRD-1, six in MRD-2, and fifteen in MRD-3. A developer who incorporates at least three approved sustainable-development features can earn bonuses that raise those caps to four, eight, and twenty units per acre respectively.⁵

Height limits vary by district. Inside a Planned Development District, a single-family home cannot exceed 35 feet unless the Planning Commission grants an exception for justifiable cause. Height limits don’t apply to church spires, water towers, transmission towers, silos, chimneys, and similar non-habitable structures, provided they don’t intrude on airport approach zones.⁵

Setbacks fix the minimum distance from your building to each property line. The front-yard minimum can shift if nearby developed lots already sit closer to the street: in that case, it becomes the average of the existing front yards within 100 feet on each side. Small projections are allowed into setback areas — overhangs up to 18 inches, HVAC units and generators in the side and rear yards of one- and two-family homes, unenclosed steps up to 3 feet, and exterior materials like brick veneer up to 6 inches.⁵

Buffers, Trees, and Flood Rules

When neighboring parcels have different intensities of use, Article V requires landscape buffers to soften the transition. Some buffer requirements attach to specific uses. Mining operations, for example, need either a 50-foot buffer with 6-foot-high natural vegetation or a 25-foot buffer with a 6-foot berm or opaque fence, and no screening is required if operations sit at least 250 feet from the property line. Boat and recreational equipment storage areas inside common amenity compounds need a 30-foot landscape buffer from adjacent residential uses and a 20-foot buffer from internal roads.⁵

Specimen live oak trees have their own protection. Unlawfully removing one triggers a two-year ban on building permits and further subdivision of the parcel.⁵

Flood rules sit on top of the base zoning. Chapter 9 of the County Code covers development in any special flood hazard area or the county’s supplemental flood zones. You need a development permit before starting work. New construction must be anchored against flotation and lateral movement, built with flood-resistant materials, and elevated appropriately. In the supplemental flood zone, structures must be built at least two feet above the supplemental flood elevation. Where fill is used, compensatory storage must offset the lost flood capacity.⁶

When flood rules and base zoning conflict, the more restrictive standard controls. Your district might allow the structure, but flood requirements can add elevation, anchoring, or material costs that reshape the project. Nonconforming structures in flood hazard areas can be raised up to three feet above base flood elevation without triggering the normal setback or height restrictions, which makes flood-proofing existing buildings easier.⁵

Nonconforming and Grandfathered Uses

If your property was used legally under earlier rules and a zoning change makes it noncompliant, the use is nonconforming rather than illegal. You can generally continue, but you can’t expand the nonconformity, and prolonged inactivity can end the grandfathered status.

When a nonconforming structure is removed or destroyed, the owner has 12 months to obtain a building permit to rebuild. For manufactured homes in districts where they are permitted, that window extends to 36 months. Some nonconforming items must be corrected quickly: fences, hedges, and signs that block intersection visibility get 30 days, and nonconforming dumpsters get 24 months.⁵

Home occupations have a specific rule. A legally nonconforming home occupation that goes inactive for 12 months after its business license expires permanently loses its nonconforming status. If a grandfathered use is what makes your home-based business legal, letting the license lapse can cost you the business.⁵

Applying to Rezone Your Property

When the current district doesn’t allow what you want to do, rezoning is the direct route. Applications go to the Planning and Zoning Department at 1301 2nd Avenue, Suite 1D09, in Conway, and can be submitted in person or emailed.⁷

You will need the Parcel ID (PIN), the current and requested districts, a description of the proposed use, and ownership information. The form also asks whether the parcel contains wetlands, sits within a regulatory floodplain, hosts known threatened or endangered species, or is subject to deed restrictions that could bar the requested use. For PDD, multi-residential, or major residential requests involving ten or more lots, a conceptual plan drawn to scale must accompany the application.⁷

Fees are set by request type. A standard rezoning is $250. A minor PDD rezoning (under 5 acres) is $250 plus $10 per acre. A major PDD request is $1,000 plus $10 per acre for projects between 5 and 100 acres, and $1,500 plus $25 per acre above 100 acres. Variance, appeal, and special exception filings are $200 each. Rezoning fees must be paid in person.⁸ An incomplete application won’t be forwarded to the Planning Commission, so a missing document or unanswered question stalls the process before it starts.⁴

Once accepted, the department mails written notice to property owners within 500 feet and posts conspicuous signs on the parcel. South Carolina law requires at least 15 days’ published notice before any public hearing on a zoning change.⁴⁹ The Planning Commission holds a public hearing the first Thursday of each month; the applicant or a representative must attend. The Commission then sends a recommendation to County Council, which holds three readings on each request. The second reading is generally another public hearing. The third is the final vote. Expect 90 to 120 days end to end, and longer for complex requests.¹⁰

Variances and Special Exceptions

Rezoning isn’t the only remedy. If strict application of the ordinance would cause unnecessary hardship on your specific parcel, you can ask the Board of Zoning Appeals for a variance. The board has to find all four of the following:

Extraordinary and exceptional conditions exist on the property.
Those conditions don’t generally apply to other properties nearby.
Because of those conditions, applying the ordinance would effectively prohibit or unreasonably restrict use of the property.
Granting the variance won’t substantially harm adjacent properties or the public good, and it won’t damage the character of the district.

The bar is high. The BZA cannot grant a variance that would introduce a use not otherwise allowed in the district, physically expand a nonconforming use, or change district boundaries. The fact that you could make more money with a variance is explicitly not grounds for granting one.¹¹

Special exceptions are different. Uses marked “SE” in the use tables are potentially compatible with the district but need case-by-case review. The BZA weighs traffic impact, pedestrian safety, noise and light effects on neighbors, aesthetic compatibility, and whether the proposed use would discourage surrounding properties from being used for their permitted purposes.¹²

Violations and Penalties

When the Zoning Administrator finds a violation, the first step is a written notice describing the problem and ordering corrective action. That may mean stopping an illegal use, removing unauthorized structures, or halting construction. The Administrator can also withhold new zoning compliance certificates or sign permits on the property and revoke previously issued ones if the violation reappears.⁵

Under South Carolina law, violating a zoning ordinance is a misdemeanor. The county, neighboring property owners who would be specially damaged, or the county attorney can seek an injunction. Every day the violation continues counts as a separate offense, so exposure grows quickly.⁹

Appealing a Zoning Decision

If you believe the Zoning Administrator misinterpreted or misapplied the ordinance, you can appeal to the Board of Zoning Appeals. State law requires the appeal to be filed within the timeframe set by the local ordinance or the board’s rules. Where no local deadline is specified, the default is 30 days from the date you receive actual notice of the decision.¹¹

If you disagree with the BZA’s ruling, you have 30 days after the decision is mailed to file an appeal in circuit court.¹³ South Carolina law also sets a 60-day window for challenging the adequacy of public notice or the validity of a zoning regulation, measured from the governing body’s decision, so long as there was substantial compliance with notice requirements.⁹

1
Justia. South Carolina Code Title 6, Chapter 29 – South Carolina Local Government Comprehensive Planning Enabling Act Of 1994
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Horry County SC.Gov. Planning and Zoning
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Horry County Government. Zoning Districts
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Horry County SC.Gov. Current Planning and Zoning
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Horry County Government. Horry County Zoning Ordinance
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Municode Library. Chapter 9 – Flood Damage Prevention and Control
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Horry County Government. Horry County Rezoning Procedures
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Horry County Government. Planning and Zoning Department Fee Schedule
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South Carolina Legislature. South Carolina Code 6-29 – South Carolina Local Government Comprehensive Planning Enabling Act of 1994
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Horry County Government. Horry County Rezoning Procedures
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South Carolina Legislature. South Carolina Code Section 6-29-800 – Powers of Board of Appeals
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Municode Library. Article XI – Zoning Board of Appeals
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Horry County SC.Gov. Board of Zoning Appeals