Rensselaer County

Village of Valley Falls, NY: zoning for new construction

Village of Valley Falls 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 Village of Valley Falls has no zoning ordinance — and no subdivision regulations and no site plan review either. The village's own capability assessment in the Rensselaer County Hazard Mitigation Plan records "N" against every regulatory tool except the building code. There is no district map and no schedule of lot sizes because there is no zoning law.

How building actually works here

This is a village of about 466 people with no departments at all: besides the Mayor and a volunteer Village Board, the only staff are a part-time Clerk and Treasurer. Expect any project to be worked out directly with the Village Board, which meets on the third Thursday of each month, and treat their answer as the standard rather than looking for a published rule behind it. The State Uniform Fire Prevention and Building Code still applies and is enforced. Note also that Valley Falls straddles the Pittstown/Schaghticoke town line — but the village is its own jurisdiction, so neither town's land-use law reaches inside the village boundary.

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

(518) 753-6131 — 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 Rensselaer 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 Rensselaer County municipalities

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

See every municipality in Rensselaer County →