Question 1

How big can the shop be relative to the house in Kershaw County?

Accepted Answer

On rural land, as big as the site will carry. The cap that exists in most zoning ordinances exists here too, but it is confined to three districts. ZLDR Sec. 3:2.5-2(C) reads: "Accessory buildings and structures shall not exceed fifty (50) percent of the gross floor area (GFA) of the principal building or use in the R-15, R-10, or the R-6 districts, or thirty-five (35) percent of the buildable area to the rear of the principal building, whichever is greater. No maximum area specified for other districts." Sec. 3:2.5-2(A) says the same about count - no more than three accessory buildings in R-15, R-10 or R-6, "no maximum on the number of accessory buildings in other districts." The three Rural Resource districts, RD-1, RD-2 and MRD-1, are not on that list, and neither is GD. So a detached shop bigger than the house is not a variance question on RD-zoned acreage. What does bind you is the dimensional table. Table 3-4 gives the RD districts a one-acre minimum lot, 100 feet of street frontage width, setbacks of 35 feet front, 20 feet side and 30 feet rear, and a maximum impervious surface ratio of 0.4 - and that last number is the one people forget, because a shop pad, a turning apron and a drive all count as impervious surface against the whole lot area. Height is capped at 35 feet, but note (d) measures it "from average elevation of finished grade within twenty (20) feet of the structure to the bottom of the eave." Measuring to the eave rather than the ridge is generous to a gabled building and unforgiving to a tall-eave clear-span shop, so size the door opening against that number early.

Question 2

Can I build the shop first and the house later?

Accepted Answer

Yes, and Kershaw County says so explicitly rather than leaving it to the counter. ZLDR Sec. 3:2.5-4 provides that accessory structures "are allowed to be erected on lots of record without the principal structure," subject to conforming to all the requirements of that section, and adds that if a principal structure is later erected, both buildings must comply with everything the ordinance requires. That is genuinely useful on acreage: you can get equipment, materials and a workspace under a roof in year one and build the dwelling in year two. Two cautions come with it. The first is in the ordinance itself: "The location, size, or any other factor 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." Site the shop as though the house already existed - front, side and rear setbacks, the drainfield and its replacement area, the well separation, the driveway. The second is practical and current: a Building Permit Allocation System took effect on 13 May 2026, and if permits are being allotted then a two-permit plan is two trips through whatever queue the county is running. Ask the Planning and Zoning department how the allocation treats an accessory building on a lot with no dwelling before you commit to the sequence. And note the contrast with the City of Columbia, where the UDO expressly forbids erecting an accessory structure before the principal one - if a staged build is the plan, the county line is doing real work for you.

Question 3

What is the Building Permit Allocation System, and does it affect a single house on my own land?

Accepted Answer

It is new and it is the first thing to ask about. Kershaw County's Planning and Zoning department runs a page headed Building Permit Allocation System which links "the Building Permit Allocation System Ordinance Effective 5/13/2026" and a companion document, "Building Permit Allocation System Permits Issued - Updated each Monday." A county that publishes a weekly allotment tracker is a county where the supply of permits can run out, which changes the shape of a build schedule: your plans can be perfectly compliant and still be waiting on an allotment. Why it exists is not hard to see in the numbers - the county grew 11.9 percent between the 2020 census base of 65,407 and the 2025 estimate of 73,166, and effectively all of that was in-migration; in the year to July 2025 net migration added 1,333 people while natural change was minus 66. The ordinance document itself is served only from the county's own host, which does not answer automated requests, so the terms that matter to you - whether an owner-occupied dwelling on existing acreage is treated differently from a subdivision lot, what counts against an allotment, how the queue is ordered, and whether accessory structures are counted - have to come from the department. Call them before you draw a site plan, ask where the tracker stood that week, and ask what the allotment position looks like for the quarter you intend to apply in.

Question 4

What design wind speed and seismic category apply in Kershaw County?

Accepted Answer

The wind speed comes off a state map. Reg 8-1202 replaced IRC section R301.2.1 with "the previously published maps by the South Carolina Building Codes Council," and Reg 8-1203 did the same for seismic design category at R301.2.2.1. The Council's approved map for Kershaw County was downloaded and read in full, and the only wind value it carries is 115 MPH, appearing on several contour lines. That is the low end of the state's range - the Council's coastal-plain maps run to 130, 140 and in two counties 150 - and it is worth knowing, because a barndominium is a large, tall, mostly open building whose engineering cost is driven by exactly that number. Note the word contour: the map says on its face that a wind speed "applies at all points along the length of its corresponding (blue) line" and that interpolation between lines "is determined by the AHJ." On seismic the honest answer is that the Kershaw map carries no design category label in its machine-readable text layer, so no category is stated on this page. Get the county 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 IRC's seismic provisions do not reach a detached one- or two-family dwelling at all until category D0, and South Carolina's D2 band sits in the Charleston, Berkeley and Dorchester triangle, a long way south-east of here.

Question 5

How does septic work here, and when in the process does it happen?

Accepted Answer

Earlier than most people expect, because Kershaw County makes it a precondition of the building permit rather than a parallel task. ZLDR Sec. 4:1.6 requires the applicant to "provide a SCDHEC septic tank permit or public sewer tap receipt" as part of opening a building permit, alongside a recorded plat in the owner's name and a 911 address. The septic permit itself comes from the South Carolina Department of Environmental Services under Regulation 61-56, not from the county. Section 102.2 fixes the site evaluation fee at "one hundred and fifty dollars ($150.00)," payable with the application. Before the evaluator comes out, § 104.1(6) requires you to clear and mark the property boundary lines and corners, post an identification marker in the front centre of the lot, 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 - an unmarked, uncleared tract will not be evaluated. Kershaw County lies along the Fall Line, and § 104.1(5) provides that "backhoe pits shall be required above the Fall Line that separates the Piedmont area from the Coastal Plain as defined by the South Carolina Geological Survey," so the method used on your parcel is a parcel question, not a county one. Two things to plan the building around: § 104.1(7) lets the Department refuse a permit outright where site conditions are unsuitable for the system requested, and a wide slab with a turning apron eats the room a drainfield and its replacement area need. Site the drainfield first and the pad second. If your parcel is within a quarter mile of Lake Wateree, the overlay adds its own requirements on top.

Question 6

Can I be my own contractor?

Accepted Answer

On a single-family dwelling, yes, with a condition that gets recorded. ZLDR Sec. 4:1.5 says a licensed contractor is required to obtain the building permit, then carves out single-family residential units: the property owner may take the permit out, but must sign a disclosure statement, "filed with the Register of Deeds," stating the owner's responsibility to hire a licensed contractor for any work not performed by the owner. The same disclosure "shall also stipulate that a home constructed under a building permit issued to the property owner cannot be sold, leased, or rented for a period of two years after completion of construction and the certificate of occupancy has been issued." That two-year restriction is the part to think about before signing, because it is a restriction on the property, not a handshake. Anything that is not a single-family dwelling has to be permitted by a contractor, and the Planning and Zoning department verifies a current and valid residential or general contractor's licence before issuing and may ask for a copy at any time. Watch the clocks either way: under Sec. 4:1.3 a permit expires if work has not begun within six months of issuance - and work is not deemed started until a scheduled inspection verifies it - and every permit expires twenty-four months after the date of issuance, after which a new one must be purchased.

Question 7

I am looking at land near Lake Wateree. Is anything different there?

Accepted Answer

Yes, and the boundary is all-or-nothing. ZLDR Sec. 3:7.4-2 draws the Lake Wateree Overlay District as "a one quarter mile (1,320 feet) wide zone starting at, and perpendicular to the project boundary as defined under the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) regulatory provisions governing Duke Energy," the project boundary being the 225.5 foot contour above mean sea level, and it provides that "any parcel transected by the one quarter mile delineation shall be considered to completely lie within the LWOD." So a parcel clipped by that line is entirely inside the district, not partly. What changes: under Sec. 3:7.4-8(C) any new or replacement onsite sewage disposal system inside the district must have an access manhole built into the lid over each compartment of the tank and over the outlet end, "with risers and access manholes extending to within six (6) inches of the ground surface," made vandal, tamper and child resistant. And under Sec. 3:7.4-8(D), before the sale of any ownership interest in a lot with a system on it, the seller must give the buyer a written inspection report by a licensed inspector, dated no earlier than sixty days before the sale, preceded by a pump-out of the tank, with a copy of the report and the pumping contractor's sewage disposal manifest going to the Building Official within ten days. Gifts and inheritances between family members are excluded. Shoreline work inside the FERC project boundary is also subject to Duke Energy's Shoreline Management Plan, and the overlay carries shoreline buffer and residential-lot erosion provisions on top of the county-wide water quality buffers. None of this makes lake land a bad buy; it means the septic design and the closing paperwork both have extra steps.

Question 8

Can I build it as a farm building and skip the code?

Accepted Answer

No - and this is the county where the question comes up most, because Kershaw ranks first in South Carolina for the total market value of agricultural products sold. The statute closes it cleanly. S.C. Code § 6-9-65(A) defines a farm structure as one built on a farm "other than a residence or a structure attached to it." A barndominium is a residence, so it falls outside the exemption from day one, and the shop half of a shouse falls outside it too because the definition excludes a structure attached to the residence. There is no square-footage threshold and no percentage-of-use argument. Three further points from the same section: § 6-9-65(C) says the exemption does not apply unless the owner files an affidavit with the local building official before construction; the definition excludes any structure "originally qualifying as a farm structure but later converted to another use," so a pole barn erected under the exemption and finished into living space later comes back under the code as the residence it has become; and § 6-9-65(B) preserves the FEMA National Flood Insurance Program standards regardless. A genuinely detached barn or equipment shed on the same land can qualify - and in Kershaw's rural districts you do not need the exemption to build one large, because the ordinance sets no maximum area for accessory buildings there anyway. The building anyone sleeps in is permitted as a dwelling.

Question 9

I want to split off a piece of family land. What does the county allow?

Accepted Answer

Two routes carry most of it. The first is the five-acre rule: ZLDR Sec. 5:1.1-1(B), following S.C. Code § 6-29-1110, exempts "the division of land into parcels of five acres or more where no new street is involved" from the subdivision regulations, with the plat received as information by the Planning and Zoning department and noted as such. The second is the county's own family exemption at Sec. 5:1.1-2(C): a division by gift conveyed by deed, no new street involved, "limited to the conveyance of land from one member to another member of the same immediate family i.e. (husband, wife, mother, father, children, grandchildren, brothers, sisters)." That one carries an eighteen-month lock - land so divided may not be transferred by sale or gift to anyone outside the immediate family for eighteen months from the date the plat is approved for recording, and the restriction is written onto the plat. The Planning Official may waive the wait for legitimate and compelling cause, and it is waived automatically on judicial foreclosure. Where the access to a family-exempt lot is an unimproved private street or drive, Sec. 5:1.2-2(A) limits the exemption to no more than ten lots out of the original parcel. Division by will or inheritance under the statute of descent and distribution is exempt as well, again where no new street is involved. Exempt from subdivision review does not mean exempt from zoning: every resulting lot still has to meet the one-acre minimum, the 100-foot frontage width and the setbacks in Table 3-4 before a dwelling goes on it.

Question 10

Is the town of Kershaw in Kershaw County?

Accepted Answer

No, and this trips up more people than any other place-name question in the State. The town of Kershaw is in Lancaster County. The Census Bureau records it as place 38095 under county FIPS 057 - Lancaster - with a 2025 population of 2,038. Kershaw County's seat is Camden, about forty miles away, with 9,201 residents. Every other South Carolina county that shares a name with a municipality actually contains that municipality; this is the single exception, and it means an automatic rule that reads a county off a town name produces a wrong answer here. The practical consequence is jurisdictional. A parcel in the town of Kershaw answers to Lancaster County and the town, under Lancaster County's Unified Development Ordinance, which by agreement extends into the town of Kershaw and Heath Springs. A parcel in Kershaw County answers to the Kershaw County ZLDR, the Kershaw County building official, Kershaw County's development impact fee and Kershaw County's building permit allocation system - none of which apply in the town. If a listing, a plat or a search result says "Kershaw, SC," confirm the county from the tax map number before anything else.

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