Buying Land in New Kent County, Virginia

A rural county under growing Richmond-area pressure

New Kent County sits along the I-64 corridor roughly midway between Richmond and Williamsburg, seated in the community of New Kent. The county remains genuinely rural and agricultural in character across most of its land area, but its position along a major interstate corridor between two growing metro areas has brought real exurban development pressure in recent years -- a dynamic worth keeping in mind for how a specific agricultural parcel is likely to be valued and used over time, whether you plan to keep it agricultural or eventually see it absorbed into nearby growth.

Zoning: no set minimum acreage to build in the Agricultural district

New Kent County's own published guidance is notably permissive on a point that trips up buyers in many rural counties: there is no set minimum acreage required to build a house on Agricultural (A-1) zoned property. If a lot can meet the district's setback requirements and has room for a well and a septic system, it can generally support a home -- the county does not impose a separate blanket minimum-acreage threshold on top of those practical requirements the way some neighboring counties do.

That doesn't mean every small A-1 lot is automatically buildable -- setback compliance and septic/well feasibility are still real constraints, and a narrow or oddly shaped parcel can fail on either point even without a formal acreage minimum. Confirm both directly with the county's Planning department and the local health district before assuming a specific lot works.

Subdividing larger tracts, septic, and the health district

Where New Kent County does impose specific size rules is on subdividing Agricultural-district land into new, separate tracts -- governed by a distinct mechanism keyed to road access rather than a single flat minimum. See our standalone page on subdividing land in New Kent County for the full breakdown of the 15-acre (state-road-frontage) and 25-acre (private-right-of-way) tract options before planning any lot split.

Septic and private well permitting in New Kent County runs through the Chickahominy Health District, a Virginia Department of Health office, with the New Kent Health Department located at 7911 Courthouse Way. Given the county's no-blanket-minimum-acreage approach to building, a health district site evaluation and perc test become an even more central part of due diligence here than in a county with a large flat acreage minimum -- the well/septic fit is doing more of the practical work of determining buildability.

Growth pressure and what it means for agricultural land

Because New Kent sits along a growth corridor rather than in a more isolated rural stretch of the state, a buyer evaluating a specific Agricultural-district parcel should think about two different timeframes at once: what the land supports today under current zoning, and how that same parcel might be valued or rezoned if the county's exurban growth continues outward from the I-64 interchange areas. Neither consideration should override the immediate due-diligence questions -- setback compliance, septic feasibility, and confirming which subdivision path (15-acre or 25-acre) actually applies to your specific tract -- but both are worth discussing with the county's Planning department if your purchase plan has a multi-year horizon.