Question 1

Can I build a metal barndominium inside the Camden city limits?

Accepted Answer

Not with metal siding on the house, unless the house is set well back and out of sight. Section 157.094 of the Zoning Ordinance sets the design standards for new single-family detached dwellings, lists the allowed facade materials - brick or brick veneer, stone or stone veneer, stucco or synthetic stucco except within two feet of grade or of a door jamb, wood, cementitious siding and vinyl of stated dimensions - and then states: "Prohibited materials. The following materials are prohibited on all facades: a. Metal siding b. Exposed smooth-finished concrete block." It also requires that each facade use the same primary material. The exception is in the applicability clause and it is the reason acreage matters here: the standards do not apply to "Single-family detached dwellings that are more than 100 feet from the street and cannot be seen from the street." On an R-E lot of 66,000 square feet with 200 feet of frontage, or on Equine District ground, a hundred feet of setback is an easy thing to achieve; on a 6,000-square-foot R-6 lot it is not. Two more things to hold. The metal roof is not the problem - the same section says "Architectural shingles and metal roofs are allowed," with the condition that "Metal roofs shall have a matte, non-reflective surface," and it bans 3-tab shingles outright. And the ordinance is not consistent about how far the material list reaches: subsection (A) states the standards apply to all new detached dwellings in the City, while subsection (B), which contains the material list, opens "The following shall apply to all building plans within new subdivisions." That is a genuine ambiguity in the text, and the honest answer is that it is settled by the Zoning Administrator for your parcel, in writing, before anyone orders a panel package.

Question 2

Can the shop be bigger than the house here?

Accepted Answer

On the larger districts, yes - and the constraint that bites first is material, not size. Section 157.060(B)(3) reads: "Accessory structures shall collectively not exceed 50 percent of the Gross Floor Area (GFA) of the principal structure(s) in the R-15, R-10, or the R-6 Districts, or 35 percent of the required rear setback area. No maximum area is required for other districts." Subsection (B)(2) does the same for count - no more than three accessory buildings in those three districts, "There is no maximum requirement for the number of accessory buildings in other districts." R-15, R-10 and R-6 are the conventional single-family districts. Residential Estate and the Equine District are not on that list, so on R-E acreage a detached shop larger than the house is not a variance question. What is a question is what it is clad in. Section 157.060(B)(4) bars corrugated or flat metal or plastic panels on the exterior walls of an accessory structure standing in a side yard in every residential district, and allows them in the rear yard only where the building "is shielded from view by the principal building, fencing, or landscaping so that it cannot be viewed from any street." Site the shop behind the house, plan the screening as part of the design rather than as an afterthought, and remember the impervious surface ratio - 0.30 in R-E and 0.10 in EQ, measured against the whole lot area, and a shop pad plus a turning apron plus a drive is a lot of impervious surface. Placement is generous by comparison: a detached accessory structure may sit inside the required side and rear setbacks so long as it is no more than three feet from the rear property line, and never closer than three feet to any side or rear line.

Question 3

Is my property in the Historic Overlay District, and what does that add?

Accepted Answer

Check two documents, because designation here is property by property rather than a blanket line on a map you can eyeball. The city publishes a list of designated historic properties by street and number - Brevard Place, Broad Street, Chesnut Street, Fair Street, Greene Street, Hampton Street, Kirkwood Lane, Lakeview Avenue and many more - and the zoning map shows the Historic Overlay District itself. What it adds is a review step ahead of the permit. The city's own building permits page states that "Properties located within the Historic Overlay District must meet the requirements of Historic Landmarks Chapter 158 prior to issuance of a building permit," and that "A Certificate of Appropriateness may first be required before any demolition, new construction, alteration, modification, or addition to a historic property can occur." Zoning Ordinance Sec. 157.030(E) puts any area in the overlay under the jurisdiction of the Historic Landmarks Commission. The Commission judges applications against the Camden Design Guidelines, which state that a new building "shall reflect the scale and overall height, the number of stories, massing, foundation height, roof form, window and door size and placement, and porches of traditional buildings," that its front wall "shall appear similar in width to traditional buildings in the neighborhood," and that new secondary structures - the guidelines' term takes in sheds, garages, agricultural buildings and outbuildings - shall be in character with the neighbourhood and site and are traditionally subordinate to the primary structure and placed to the rear of the lot. On metal specifically the guidelines are permissive about roofs and prescriptive about how: metal roof materials "shall be earth tones and have a matte, non-reflective finish," seams shall be low profile, and "Metal roofs are also appropriate on secondary structures." Plan for the calendar as well as the design - the Commission meets monthly with published application deadlines, and the submission checklist for new construction asks for elevations of all sides to scale, photographs of the site and adjoining properties, a site plan, and a materials and details list with samples possibly required at the meeting.

Question 4

Who issues the permit, and in what order do the steps happen?

Accepted Answer

Inside the city limits everything is Camden's, and the order catches people out. The zoning permit comes first: Sec. 157.211(D)(1) provides that no structure shall be erected, expanded or moved "until a zoning permit as required by this ordinance has been issued," and Sec. 157.183 adds that "No lot shall be graded or disturbed prior to issuance of a zoning permit." That permit comes from the Zoning Administrator, and it covers conditional uses as well as uses by right - which matters here because a storage building, auxiliary shed or workshop is listed as a conditional accessory use in every residential district, meaning it is permitted subject to the Sec. 157.060 conditions rather than sent to a hearing. A site plan is required with the application for any new structure. The zoning permit then expires six months from issuance unless a building permit has issued for the work or, where no building permit is required, substantial work has begun. Next comes the building permit from the City of Camden Building Department, and drawings must be approved before it issues. If the property is in the Historic Overlay District, Chapter 158 has to be satisfied before that permit can be issued; if any of the work is in the floodplain, so does the Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance at Chapter 152. Permits are usually issued to a state-licensed contractor, though the city says a permit "may be issued to the owner of a house if the owner signs an affidavit and complies with other requirements of state law." All contractors and subcontractors need a City of Camden business licence, and electrical, plumbing and mechanical work take separate permits pulled by a craftsman holding at least a journeyman licence. The prime contractor schedules inspections on at least 24 hours' notice, and a certificate of occupancy must be obtained from the Building Department before the building is occupied.

Question 5

What design wind speed and seismic category apply in Camden?

Accepted Answer

The wind speed comes off a state map, and the answer is one of the lowest in South Carolina. Regulation 8-1202 replaced the residential code's wind provision at R301.2.1 and Regulation 8-1203 replaced the seismic determination at R301.2.2.1 with "the previously published maps by the South Carolina Building Codes Council." The Council's Kershaw County sheet was downloaded and read in full: the only wind value it carries is 115 MPH, printed four times against contour lines across the county. That is the low end of the state's range, and it matters commercially, because a barndominium is a large, tall, mostly open building whose engineering cost is driven by exactly that number - the Council's coastal-plain sheets run to 130, 140 and in two counties 150. Note the word contour. The sheet says on its face that a wind speed "applies at all points along the length of its corresponding (blue) line" and that "Interpolation between wind speed lines is determined by the AHJ." Inside the corporate limits the authority having jurisdiction is the City of Camden Building Department, which is the practical difference between this page and the county page: same map, different reader. On seismic the honest answer is that the Kershaw sheet carries no design category label in its machine-readable text layer, so no category is stated here. Ask the city building official to read it off the Council map for your tax map number and put it in writing. For context on why it matters, the residential code applies its seismic provisions to a detached one- and two-family dwelling only from category D0 upward, and South Carolina's D2 band sits in the Charleston, Berkeley and Dorchester triangle, a long way south-east of the Sandhills. Exposure category stays site-specific under R301.2.1.4 wherever the parcel is.

Question 6

Can I put in a septic system on a parcel inside the city?

Accepted Answer

Only with the city's utilities director agreeing, and the conditions are written narrowly. Camden's Land Development Regulations require a pre-application meeting with the Public Utilities Department before any utility plans are drawn, and then provide that "the Director of Public Utilities may only approve on-site, subsurface sewage disposal systems if the following conditions are met: a. The existing city or other public sewer system is not readily accessible to the development site b. It is infeasible or economically prohibitive to extend the city system to the property c. The soil percolation and absorption are satisfactory d. On-site disposal will not endanger ground water supplies below the level of the absorption system." That is a municipal gate that simply does not exist on unincorporated land, and it is worth resolving before an offer rather than after, because on a parcel where sewer runs down the road the answer may be that you connect. Where a system is approved, the State permit is still a separate track: onsite wastewater is permitted by the South Carolina Department of Environmental Services under Regulation 61-56, whose Sec. 102.2 fixes the site evaluation fee at "one hundred and fifty dollars ($150.00)," and whose Sec. 104.1(6) requires you to clear and mark the boundary lines and corners, post an identification marker, stake the corners of the proposed building, mark the proposed stub-out, tank and drain field areas, locate the well and submit a site sketch before an evaluator comes out. Camden sits close to the Fall Line and Sec. 104.1(5) changes the method across it - backhoe pits are required above the line separating the Piedmont from the Coastal Plain - so which method applies is a question about your parcel rather than about the city. Site the drainfield and its replacement area first and the building pad second; a wide slab with a turning apron eats exactly the ground a field needs.

Question 7

Can I build the shop first and live in it while the house goes up?

Accepted Answer

No, and the ordinance is explicit about the second half of that. Section 157.057(A)(1) authorises the Zoning Administrator to issue temporary use permits and then states flatly: "A temporary use cannot be used as living quarters," with an exception only for fairs and carnivals. What the same section does allow is a contractor's office and equipment shed, in any district, "for a period covering construction phase of a project not to exceed one year," placed on the property where the construction is happening and extendable once by up to a year. That is somewhere to keep tools and paperwork, not somewhere to sleep. On the sequencing question itself - putting a detached shop up before the dwelling - the city's ordinance contains no provision expressly permitting it, which is not the same thing as a prohibition but is a real difference from the unincorporated county's ordinance, which addresses the case directly. Kershaw County's ZLDR Sec. 3:2.5-4 provides that accessory structures "are allowed to be erected on lots of record without the principal structure," adding that the location or size of the pre-existing accessory structure "may not be considered as grounds for a variance from any requirement imposed on the accessory and/or principal structure." Camden's Sec. 157.185 says only that "Only one principal building and its customary accessory building(s) may be erected on any lot," which reads as an accessory building being accessory to something. Put the question to the Zoning Administrator with a site plan in hand before you commit to a two-phase build, and if a staged build is genuinely the plan, that is one of the questions worth asking on both sides of the city line before choosing a parcel. The design that avoids the whole issue is the one most people want anyway: shop bay and living space under one continuous roof, permitted and inspected as a single-family dwelling from the first day, which is a permitted use in R-E, R-15, R-10 and R-6.

Question 8

Is there actually land inside Camden, or should I be looking outside the city?

Accepted Answer

There is genuinely land inside the city, and that is unusual for a county seat. Camden holds 11.107 square miles of land - about 7,109 acres - with 9,201 people on it, roughly 828 to the square mile, which is less than half the density of Myrtle Beach and about three quarters of Conway's. Two districts on the city's own map are written for acreage. Residential Estate takes a minimum lot of 66,000 square feet with 200 feet of lot width, a 0.30 impervious surface ratio and a maximum of 0.75 dwelling units per gross acre - explicitly a district for "detached, single-family dwellings, and limited residential support facilities at very low densities." The Equine District takes twenty acres and 800 feet of width, and holds every stable, hay barn, horse shelter, other accessory building and small-paddock fence 100 feet off any property line. So a substantive answer inside the line exists. What the line changes is the finish. Inside it, metal siding is prohibited on the facades of a new detached house unless the house stands more than 100 feet from the street and cannot be seen from it, corrugated panels are barred on a side-yard accessory wall and permitted at the rear only where screened from every street, foundations must stand about 18 inches above grade and be clad in masonry on the front and side facades, eaves must project six inches, entries must be sheltered, and windows may not be wider than they are tall. Outside it, in unincorporated Kershaw County, none of those material and facade standards applies and the county's own rural districts govern instead - a different ordinance, a different building official and a different fee schedule, and the county's development impact fee reaches new development in the unincorporated county rather than inside a municipality. If the plan is a one-building shouse behind a hundred feet of front lawn on estate ground, Camden works well. If the plan is a bare corrugated shell close to the road, it belongs on the county side.

Question 9

Can I put it up as a farm building and finish it out later?

Accepted Answer

No. S.C. Code Section 6-9-65(A) defines a farm structure as one built on a farm "other than a residence or a structure attached to it, for use on the farm including, but not limited to, barns, sheds, and poultry houses," and expressly excludes any structure "originally qualifying as a 'farm structure' but later converted to another use" - which is precisely the plan of raising a pole barn under the exemption and finishing it into living space afterwards. A barndominium is a residence, so it never reaches the exemption, and the shop half of a shouse is attached to a residence, so it does not either. There is no square-footage test and no percentage-of-use argument available. Even for a genuinely detached agricultural building the relief is conditional: Section 6-9-65(C) requires the owner to file an affidavit with the official responsible for enforcing the building code before construction, stating the purpose and intended use; Section 6-9-65(B) preserves the National Flood Insurance Program standards regardless, which matters in a city that puts Chapter 152 compliance ahead of the building permit; and Section 6-9-65(D) leaves the jurisdiction free to require a permit anyway. And the exemption, where it applies at all, is from the building code and not from zoning. The city's accessory-structure standards - the size split in Sec. 157.060(B)(3), the placement rules, the three-foot setback floor and above all the metal-panel restriction in Sec. 157.060(B)(4) - apply to an agricultural outbuilding exactly as they apply to a garage, and in the Historic Overlay District a Certificate of Appropriateness for the accessory building is a separate step ahead of the permit.

Question 10

How do I split a piece of land here without triggering full subdivision review?

Accepted Answer

Five acres and no new street. The Land Development Regulations define an exempt subdivision as one that "Involves the division of land into parcels of five acres or more where no new street is involved," or that combines or recombines portions of previously platted lots without increasing the number of lots where the resulting lots meet the standards, or that involves cemetery lots. Section 156.23 then sets a light procedure: three copies of the exempt plat drawn to the Minimum Standards Manual for the Practice of Land Surveying in South Carolina, an executed application form and the prescribed fee to the Planning and Development Director, who advises on compliance, approves the plat, submits it to the Planning Commission as a matter of information and signs each copy for recording together with the statement "This plat is exempt from the requirements of the Land Development Regulations." Under five acres the categories change. A minor subdivision is one that does not create more than five lots, create any new street, extend public water or sewer lines, or install drainage improvements through one or more lots to serve others, and it takes a sketch plan to the same Director; anything else is a major subdivision with construction plans, as-built drawings of the sanitary sewer, stormwater and water systems, and state approval of water and sewer design. Two things do not go away with the exemption. Every resulting lot still has to meet the district's minimum lot area, lot width and setbacks - 66,000 square feet and 200 feet of width in R-E, 871,200 square feet and 800 feet in EQ - before a dwelling can go on it. And Sec. 157.184 requires each lot to abut a public street with direct deeded vehicular and pedestrian access, with only narrow exceptions for uses legally established before the ordinance on a recorded exclusive easement at least 15 feet wide.

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