Delaware County

Town of Hancock, NY: zoning for new construction

Town of Hancock has no zoning ordinance at all. There are no districts, no minimum lot sizes and no setbacks to look up here — but that is not the same as no rules, and it does not mean a project is unconstrained.

What we know

The Town of Hancock has no zoning ordinance — there are no districts, no minimum lot sizes and no setbacks to look up. Three independent findings agree. (1) The Town publishes its code on eCode360 (custId HA6727) and there is no zoning chapter among its 27 chapters, which do include Site Plan Review, Subdivision of Land, Flood Damage Prevention and Junkyards — so the code is published, and zoning is simply not in it. (2) The Town's own Planning Board page states affirmatively what does govern: "The Town of Hancock Land Subdivision Law" and "Town of Hancock Site Plan Review Law" are in effect in the Town of Hancock — zoning is absent from a list of what is in force, and the Board's entire document set is subdivision, sketch plan, boundary line adjustment and site plan forms with no zoning permit or variance application among them. (3) The Town has NO Zoning Board of Appeals and no zoning officer; New York Town Law § 267 requires a ZBA wherever a zoning ordinance is in effect, so its absence is close to decisive. Do not confuse this with the VILLAGE of Hancock inside it, which does have zoning (five districts, eCode360 Ch. 115), nor with the Town of Hancock in NEW HAMPSHIRE, whose zoning ordinance is the first search result for this town's name.

How building actually works here

Hancock is the largest town by area in Delaware County and holds its largest inventory of vacant residential land, so "no zoning" here is a genuine opportunity rather than a data gap — but it is not the absence of review. The Land Subdivision Law and the Site Plan Review Law both apply and both run through a Planning Board that meets the third Thursday of every month; a major subdivision carries a $75 fee plus $10 per lot over the first ten, and sketch plan review is free, which makes an early informal conference the cheapest move available. The State Uniform Fire Prevention and Building Code and the Delaware County health department's well and septic separation distances apply regardless, and on an unserviced rural lot those separations are usually what actually sizes the parcel, not any land-use rule. Two further constraints matter more here than zoning would: much of the town drains toward the Cannonsville Reservoir, so NYC DEP septic and stormwater rules bind directly on subsurface systems, and the Delaware River corridor brings flood-hazard mapping into play. Call the Code Enforcement Officer at the Town Hall before designing anything — with no published schedule to read, that conversation is the standard.

Do not use the 's code

If you are looking at a parcel just outside the village line, the zoning page is the right one — but check which jurisdiction the parcel is actually in first, because the two are easy to confuse and the standards are not the same.

Who to call

(607) 637-3651 — confirm the current position before relying on the absence of zoning. Ask specifically what does apply: subdivision, site plan review and the state building code usually still do.

Whatever you are told, do not assume a neighbouring municipality's standards apply here. Adjoining jurisdictions in Delaware County routinely differ by several acres of minimum lot, and a nearby town's schedule is not evidence of anything on this side of the line.

Zoning in nearby Delaware County municipalities

These do publish their codes, and we hold the full district tables for them:

See every municipality in Delaware County →