Question 1

Is Pickens County zoned, and what district is my parcel in?

Accepted Answer

Pickens is zoned in the sense that a countywide land development ordinance applies to your parcel, and unzoned in the sense that there are no use districts to be sorted into. Article 2 of the Unified Development Standards Ordinance establishes a single General Development District, and Section 202 defines its boundary as "all of the area within unincorporated limits of Pickens County, South Carolina." Section 104(a) applies the ordinance to all unincorporated areas. So every unincorporated parcel is in the same district, there is no permitted-use table that could exclude a dwelling with a large shop, and there is no rezoning to apply for. That is a real advantage over a county that zones a patchwork, because you cannot buy the wrong parcel by accident. What replaces the district question is a list of things to check individually: whether the parcel sits in the Highway 11 Natural Heritage Area or its 150-foot buffer, whether it is inside the Highway 18 overlay, whether any of it is within fifty feet of full pool on Keowee, Jocassee or Hartwell, whether the mapped flood hazard reaches the pad, and what the recorded covenants on your deed say — the ordinance expressly does not repeal or impair a recorded covenant that is more restrictive than the ordinance itself. Ask Planning at 222 McDaniel Avenue for each of those before you make an offer. And note that the county's ordinance covers the unincorporated county only: Easley, Clemson, Pickens, Liberty, Central, Norris and Six Mile are municipalities with their own councils, and a parcel inside a town line answers to that town.

Question 2

Can the shop be bigger and taller than the house?

Accepted Answer

Taller, yes, and there is no ordinance number to argue with — Section 414 says the ordinance "does not set standards for the maximum height of buildings or structures" beyond one fire-service provision. Bigger, also yes, because nothing in the Pickens ordinance measures an accessory building against the dwelling's floor area the way many South Carolina jurisdictions do. What changes with size is the setback, not the permission. Under Section 409(a), an accessory building of 1,000 square feet or less needs 5 feet from any property line; over 1,000 square feet it takes the principal building's setbacks, which Table 4.4 gives as 20 feet from any street, 7 feet from an interior side line and 10 feet from an interior rear line. Any accessory building attached to the house takes the house's yard requirements regardless of size, so an attached shop is always on the principal-building line. The height provision has a genuine trigger too: above 35 feet, or above three storeys, you must coordinate with the fire chief of the local fire district, the County Building Official and the Planning Department to determine the height permitted in that fire service district. A 14- or 16-foot door under a 24-foot eave is well inside that. A tall gambrel or a two-storey living end pushing 38 feet is a conversation to have before the truss order, and the answer is district-specific rather than countywide.

Question 3

What wind speed and seismic design category should my engineer use in Pickens County?

Accepted Answer

Ask the county building official in writing, and be careful of any number quoted without one — including the one on the county's own handout. South Carolina does not use the national maps for houses: modifications IRC 2021-04 and IRC 2021-05 replace the residential code's wind and seismic sources with the Building Codes Council's own county maps. The Council has approved a designation for 35 of the 46 counties. Pickens is one of the eleven it has not — the others are Anderson, Cherokee, Greenville, Greenwood, Laurens, McCormick, Oconee, Spartanburg, Sumter and Union — and reading the Council's maps page on 8 September 2026 returns no occurrence of "Pickens" anywhere on it. The page tells the building official to consult a hazard tool where no map exists, and the Council's own 2024 staff comment records that the ATC Hazards by Location site "ceased operation on December 31, 2024". Separately, Pickens County's residential inspection checklist for the 2021 IRC carries a wall-bracing item reading "Wall bracing according to Ultimate Wind Speed 115 mph (Table R602.10.3(1))". That is a real published figure from the department that will inspect your building, but it is the county speaking rather than the Council, it is stated for wall bracing rather than as a completed Table R301.2, and it is not accompanied by a seismic design category, a ground snow load, a frost depth or a termite band. Take both facts to plan review and get the criteria confirmed in writing. Whatever they are, the 12-inch minimum footing depth below undisturbed ground under R403.1.4 applies, and the county's checklist repeats it.

Question 4

The parcel is on a slope. What does that actually cost me?

Accepted Answer

More than the view is worth if you plan it late, and less than people fear if you plan it first. Pickens is the steepest county in the state — the Blue Ridge escarpment and Sassafras Mountain sit along its northern edge — and a barndominium wants one flat rectangle, which on most of this ground means cut and fill. Three county rules govern the result. Table 11.1 caps every cut and fill slope at 2 to 1 measured run to rise, at every depth, so a six-foot cut consumes twelve horizontal feet on each side before the pad even starts; Section 1103(f) requires the slope to be uniform through each section and lets a rock cut go vertical only on the County Engineer's written approval. Section 1103(e) then sets the standard for the fill your slab will sit on: six-inch compacted lifts, 95 percent of maximum laboratory dry weight by AASHTO T-99 anywhere a structure, drive or utility goes, 90 percent elsewhere, with proof rolling first. And the building department's own checklist says a soils test may be required where soil is questionable or on fill. The failure this all exists to prevent is specific and expensive: half a pad cut into undisturbed residuum and half on placed fill consolidates at two different rates, and a wide rigid slab telegraphs the difference as a crack. Site the building along the contour rather than across it where you can, budget the rock, and treat the engineered fill as part of the foundation rather than as dirt work.

Question 5

I am looking at land along Highway 11 or near Table Rock. What changes?

Accepted Answer

Two things, and only one of them is the one people have heard about. First, the hard rule: Ordinance No. 617, adopted on third reading 11 August 2025, defines the Highway 11 Buffer as 150 feet north and 150 feet south of the centre line of Highway 11 across the roughly 21 miles it crosses the county, and inside it "no development other than the maintenance or approved renovation of existing construction is allowed", with no land disturbance either. There are two carve-outs — a 500-foot exclusion measured along the roadway from the centreline intersection of a major road, and an access exclusion the Planning Commission may grant on a site plan and remediation plan so a driveway can cross. If the buildable part of a parcel is inside that band, it is not buildable. Second, the rule people wrongly assume kills the idea: the ordinance's design provisions do include a ban on covering a building "with sheet or corrugated metal or with vinyl siding", an earth-tone colour requirement, a 35-foot height cap and a roof-system rule. Those sit under Section 4, Commercial and Site Design Limitations, and Section 5 says in terms that "Single Family Residential use is not further limited by the design provisions of this Ordinance", limiting subdivisions to ten or fewer homes and treating multi-family as commercial. So a metal-clad single-family barndominium in the Natural Heritage Area is not prohibited by that ordinance. Confirm the parcel's position against the ordinance's Exhibit A map with the Planning Department, because the Heritage Area also reaches 1,000 feet either side of the centre line plus the mapped viewshed.

Question 6

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

Accepted Answer

No, on two independent grounds, and Pickens has paperwork for both. The statutory ground first: S.C. Code Section 6-9-65 exempts farm structures from the building code but 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 and the shop half under the same roof is attached to it, so neither is ever a farm structure and the exemption is unavailable from the outset. The practical ground second: even for a genuine barn, Pickens narrows the exemption more than most counties. Its Application for Buildings Codes Exemption states that although the farm structure is exempt from code enforcement and associated inspections, "in order to verify required setbacks, as indicated on the permit, as well as other site considerations, a permit and subsequent inspection shall be required", and adds that "All Electrical, Plumbing, and Mechanical aspects of the proposed Farm Structure are NOT exempt from Building Codes and must be properly permitted." And if the plan is to permit a plain utility building instead and finish an apartment inside it later, the county has a form for that too. The Non-Commercial / Personal Use Affidavit has the owner swear the building "will be for non-commercial personal use and it will also not be used as a dwelling", acknowledges that a different use voids the permit, and warns that false information may lead to revocation "and notification of such revocation provided to any utility company supplying their services to the structure." That puts the electricity at risk, which is a slower and more expensive problem than a stop-work notice.

Question 7

What will the county charge me, and how is the figure worked out?

Accepted Answer

Pickens publishes both halves of the sum, so you can work it out before you apply. The permit fee comes off a valuation table: $75 for a total value up to $8,000; $10 per thousand for each $1,000 over the minimum between $8,001 and $50,000; $300 for the first $50,000 plus $4 per additional thousand up to $100,000; $500 for the first $100,000 plus $3 per additional thousand up to $500,000; and $2,000 for the first $500,000 plus $2 per additional thousand above that. The valuation itself, for a single-family residential permit, comes from published square-foot factors — $132.52 heated, $51.35 for garage, utility and miscellaneous space, $51.35 unfinished, $25.20 for porches — and the county applies the higher of the contractor's valuation or the table. That is why the shop half and the living half are priced differently and why the split between heated and unheated square footage on your plans matters to the fee. Plan review, where a submittal is required and the valuation exceeds $1,000, is a separate charge equal to half the permit fee, paid when plans go in. A re-inspection is $50. Starting work before the permit issues doubles the fees, and paying the double fee does not excuse compliance. The county's site plan review fee — $40 minimum plus $10 per 1,000 square feet of gross floor area over 2,000 square feet, capped at $1,000 — applies to multi-family, commercial, industrial and other non-residential uses, so a single-family barndominium does not pay it. Septic and well permits are separate and come from the state.

Question 8

Who permits the septic system, and what fails a Pickens parcel?

Accepted Answer

The state does, not the county. Onsite wastewater is permitted by the South Carolina Department of Environmental Services under Regulation 61-56, and the county's building department points applicants there. Two things differ from the coastal plain. Above the Fall Line — all of Pickens — Section 61-56.104 requires backhoe pits rather than borings alone, so the evaluation is a machine on site and the parcel has to be cleared, cornered and the house location staked before anyone comes out. And the thing that most often ends a Blue Ridge deal is depth to rock: Section 200.5 requires depth to rock and other restrictive horizons to be greater than 12 inches below the deepest point of effluent application, and the regulation's definition of a restrictive horizon names "shallow rock formations" among the features it means. Suitability is judged on soil morphology, not a percolation test — Section 200.1 asks for soil texture, depth to restrictive horizons and depth to the zone of saturation. You may hire a licensed Professional Soil Classifier privately and file the report with the application. Two local wrinkles are worth budgeting for: the county's Table 4.1 minimums are floors rather than promises, and Section 406(c) lets the health authority demand a larger lot for excessive slope, adverse topographic features, or simply because outbuildings and a larger home take up usable soil area; and every lot has to carry both an initial system area and an equal-sized replacement area. Do the soil evaluation before closing, not after.

Barndominium Builders in Pickens County, SC

Pickens County at a glance

Building conditions in Pickens County

Also worth knowing before you build in Pickens County

What we build in Pickens County

Custom Plans

Barndominium Kits

Turnkey Builds

What a build looks like

The parcel

Pad and permit

Frame to finish

Keep reading

Barndominium Cost Guide

How Long Does It Take?

Nearby areas we build in

Building in Pickens County: common questions

Building in Pickens County?