ADU · Saratoga County
Can you build an ADU in Northumberland, NY?
Town of Northumberland has 7 districts. All districts prohibit ADUs. Check your address to confirm the district that applies to your parcel:
What the Northumberland code indicates by district
The table below shows how each district treats ADUs, alongside the lot and setback standards that govern a second unit. District boundaries and conditions vary, so treat this as a starting point and confirm the district that applies to your parcel.
| District | Min lot | Setbacks F / S / R | Max height | ADU |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agricultural Protection District (the Town's largest-lot district and its farmland-protection instrument: a single-family dwelling on 5 ACRES with 300 FT of frontage, 50 ft front, 25 ft side and 25 ft rear setbacks, 10% maximum lot coverage and 35 ft height. THE 10% COVERAGE IS THE TIGHTEST IN THE TOWN — half what the residential districts allow and a fifth of the Hamlet's — so even on five acres the built footprint is deliberately constrained. FARMS AND AGRICULTURAL PURSUITS NEED TWICE THE LAND A HOUSE DOES, at 10 ACRES with the same 300 ft of frontage, as do forestry uses and their structures; a farm's setbacks are stated as 'NA', so the farm building itself is unconstrained in placement. That inversion — ten acres to farm, five to build a house — is the district doing its job: it prices the agricultural use as the larger landholding rather than the marginal one. SPECIAL PERMIT USES: farm employee dwelling units at 10 acres, home occupation and bed-and-breakfast and garden shop at 5 acres, nursing home at 5 acres but with 100 ft front and 50 ft side and rear yards, marina and park at 5 acres. MINING IS THE OUTLIER AND THE MOST PERMISSIVE ENTRY IN THE WHOLE SCHEDULE ON LOT SIZE: 1 ACRE, but with 100 FT SETBACKS ON ALL THREE SIDES and no coverage limit at all — the Town trades area for separation exactly as the Village of Corinth does. Accessory uses carry their own rows and much shallower setbacks than the principal building, with a footnote making the coverage figure the requirement for the PRINCIPAL AND ACCESSORY USES COMBINED rather than a separate allowance — so a garage or shed eats into the same percentage the house does.) | 5 ac | 50 / 25 / 25 ft | 35 ft | No |
| R-3 Residential (a single-family dwelling on 3 ACRES with 200 FT of frontage, 50 ft front, 25 ft side and 25 ft rear setbacks, 20% maximum lot coverage and 35 ft height. R-3 sits between the Agricultural Protection District's five acres and R-1's one, and it DOUBLES THE COVERAGE ALLOWANCE FROM 10% TO 20% as it steps down in lot size — so the smaller lot is also the more efficiently buildable one, which is not always the case in this county. The setbacks are identical to APD's and to R-1's: 50-25-25 runs unchanged across all three of the Town's conventional residential districts, so ONLY LOT AREA, FRONTAGE AND COVERAGE DISTINGUISH THEM. A duplex dwelling takes 1 acre with 150 ft of frontage at 30% coverage. THE DUPLEX GETS MORE COVERAGE THAN THE SINGLE-FAMILY HOUSE, which is unusual and worth using: a duplex dwelling here takes the same lot, frontage and setbacks as a single-family dwelling but is allowed 30% lot coverage against the house's 20%. The Town is not charging extra land for the second unit — only asking for a slightly larger footprint allowance to fit it. A bed-and-breakfast is a special permit use at the full 3 acres with 200 ft of frontage. Accessory uses carry their own rows and much shallower setbacks than the principal building, with a footnote making the coverage figure the requirement for the PRINCIPAL AND ACCESSORY USES COMBINED rather than a separate allowance — so a garage or shed eats into the same percentage the house does.) | 3 ac | 50 / 25 / 25 ft | 35 ft | No |
| R-1 Residential (the Town's standard residential district: a single-family dwelling on 1 ACRE with 150 FT of frontage, 50 ft front, 25 ft side and 25 ft rear setbacks, 20% maximum lot coverage and 35 ft height. Setbacks and coverage are identical to R-3's — the districts differ only in lot area and frontage, three acres and 200 ft against one acre and 150 ft. A DUPLEX DWELLING NEEDS NO ADDITIONAL LAND AT ALL: it sits on the same 1 acre with the same 150 ft of frontage and the same 50-25-25 setbacks as a single-family house, and is allowed 30% coverage rather than 20%. THE DUPLEX GETS MORE COVERAGE THAN THE SINGLE-FAMILY HOUSE, which is unusual and worth using: a duplex dwelling here takes the same lot, frontage and setbacks as a single-family dwelling but is allowed 30% lot coverage against the house's 20%. The Town is not charging extra land for the second unit — only asking for a slightly larger footprint allowance to fit it. That makes R-1 the cheapest place in Northumberland to add a second unit, and since the Town has no accessory dwelling unit of any kind, the duplex is the route that matters. Accessory uses carry their own rows and much shallower setbacks than the principal building, with a footnote making the coverage figure the requirement for the PRINCIPAL AND ACCESSORY USES COMBINED rather than a separate allowance — so a garage or shed eats into the same percentage the house does.) | 1 ac | 50 / 25 / 25 ft | 35 ft | No |
| Mobile Home District (BY FAR THE SMALLEST LOT STANDARD IN THE TOWN, and the only one stated in square feet rather than acres: a mobile home ON AN ESTABLISHED LOT IN AN ESTABLISHED MOBILE HOME PARK needs 9,000 SQ FT with 75 ft of frontage, 20 ft front, 20 ft side and 20 ft rear setbacks, 30% maximum lot coverage and 35 ft height. READ THE USE DESCRIPTION CAREFULLY BECAUSE IT IS DOING THE REAL WORK: the entitlement is for a home on an ALREADY ESTABLISHED lot in an ALREADY ESTABLISHED park. It is not a right to create a new mobile home park, and the schedule states no lot area, frontage or standard for a new park anywhere — so the 9,000 sf figure describes infill into existing parks rather than a development opportunity. Anyone reading MH as the Town's affordable-housing district should establish first whether an established park lot actually exists. The 20 ft setbacks on all three sides and the 30% coverage are otherwise the most permissive combination in Northumberland outside the Hamlet. Accessory uses take much shallower yards still — a private garage at 20 ft front and 5 ft side and rear, a storage shed at 25/5/5. Accessory uses carry their own rows and much shallower setbacks than the principal building, with a footnote making the coverage figure the requirement for the PRINCIPAL AND ACCESSORY USES COMBINED rather than a separate allowance — so a garage or shed eats into the same percentage the house does.) | 0.21 ac | 20 / 20 / 20 ft | 35 ft | No |
| C/R Commercial/Residential (a mixed district whose residential standard is IDENTICAL TO R-1 IN EVERY COLUMN — a single-family dwelling on 1 acre with 150 ft of frontage, 50-25-25 setbacks, 20% coverage and 35 ft height — so what distinguishes C/R from R-1 is entirely the use list rather than the buildable envelope, the commercial permissions sitting alongside the housing rather than displacing it. A duplex likewise matches R-1 at 1 acre and 30% coverage. THE DUPLEX GETS MORE COVERAGE THAN THE SINGLE-FAMILY HOUSE, which is unusual and worth using: a duplex dwelling here takes the same lot, frontage and setbacks as a single-family dwelling but is allowed 30% lot coverage against the house's 20%. The Town is not charging extra land for the second unit — only asking for a slightly larger footprint allowance to fit it. A BED-AND-BREAKFAST IS AVAILABLE HERE AT ONLY 1 ACRE with 150 ft of frontage and 20% coverage, against the 3 acres R-3 demands and the 5 acres the Agricultural Protection District demands for the same use — so C/R is by a wide margin the easiest district in Northumberland in which to open one, which matters in a town on the Hudson north of Schuylerville. Accessory uses carry their own rows and much shallower setbacks than the principal building, with a footnote making the coverage figure the requirement for the PRINCIPAL AND ACCESSORY USES COMBINED rather than a separate allowance — so a garage or shed eats into the same percentage the house does.) | 1 ac | 50 / 25 / 25 ft | 35 ft | No |
| Hamlet (the Town's village-scale district and its densest conventional standard: a single-family dwelling on 20,000 SQ FT — under half an acre — with only 100 FT of frontage, a 25 ft front yard, 15 ft side and 20 ft rear, 50% MAXIMUM LOT COVERAGE and 35 ft height. Against R-1 that is a fifth of the lot, two-thirds of the frontage, half the front yard and MORE THAN DOUBLE THE COVERAGE, which together produce a genuine hamlet streetscape rather than a suburban one. THE 50% COVERAGE IS THE HIGHEST IN THE TOWN outside the Industrial district. A DUPLEX DWELLING HERE DOES COST EXTRA LAND, unlike in R-1 and C/R: 40,000 SQ FT, exactly double the single-family figure, at the same 100 ft frontage, 25-15-20 setbacks and 50% coverage. So the Hamlet is the one district where the second unit is priced at a full additional lot. A BED-AND-BREAKFAST NEEDS 1 ACRE HERE — more than double the 20,000 sf a house needs — with a 100 ft frontage and 25 ft front, 20 ft side and rear yards at 50% coverage, so the lodging use is deliberately held to a larger parcel than the dwelling it would occupy. Accessory uses carry their own rows and much shallower setbacks than the principal building, with a footnote making the coverage figure the requirement for the PRINCIPAL AND ACCESSORY USES COMBINED rather than a separate allowance — so a garage or shed eats into the same percentage the house does. Accessory garages and sheds take 25 ft and 35 ft front yards respectively with 10 ft sides and 15 ft rears.) | 0.46 ac | 25 / 15 / 20 ft | 35 ft | No |
| Industrial (the Town's employment district, and notable for having NO PERMITTED PRINCIPAL USES AT ALL in Attachment A — every entry sits under SPECIAL PERMIT USES, so nothing in the Industrial district is as-of-right and every project goes through the special permit process. Manufacturing and research and development centres each need 1 ACRE with 200 FT of frontage, 50 ft front, 30 ft side and 30 ft rear setbacks, 60% MAXIMUM LOT COVERAGE and 35 ft height. THE 60% COVERAGE IS THE HIGHEST FIGURE IN THE TOWN, and the 200 ft frontage on a one-acre lot is the same width-heavy geometry the Town applies in R-3 — a one-acre lot 200 ft wide is only about 218 ft deep, so an industrial parcel here is broad and shallow by design. Height stays at 35 ft, the same as every other district in Northumberland: THE TOWN APPLIES A SINGLE 35 FT CEILING ACROSS ALL SEVEN DISTRICTS with no exception for industrial or commercial building, which is unusually uniform and will constrain any use needing clear internal height. Accessory uses carry their own rows and much shallower setbacks than the principal building, with a footnote making the coverage figure the requirement for the PRINCIPAL AND ACCESSORY USES COMBINED rather than a separate allowance — so a garage or shed eats into the same percentage the house does.) | 1 ac | 50 / 30 / 30 ft | 35 ft | No |
ADUs vs. short-term rentals in Northumberland
No local short-term-rental law on record - which is not the same as permission for Town of Northumberland. No short-term-rental provision exists in the Town of Northumberland Zoning Ordinance. The Ordinance defines no short-term rental, vacation rental or transient-occupancy use, and Attachment A's Schedule of Permitted Uses lists none. There is no registration or licensing requirement. THE ONE ENUMERATED TRANSIENT USE IS THE BED-AND-BREAKFAST, and it is a SPECIAL PERMIT use whose lot requirement varies more than fivefold by district — 5 ACRES in the Agricultural Protection District, 3 ACRES in R-3, 1 ACRE in C/R Commercial/Residential, and 1 ACRE in the Hamlet. THE HAMLET FIGURE IS THE ONE TO NOTICE: a bed-and-breakfast there needs a full acre while a single-family dwelling needs only 20,000 sq ft, so the lodging use is held to MORE THAN DOUBLE the land of the house it would occupy. C/R is by a wide margin the easiest district in which to open one, at a single acre against APD's five for the identical use. Attachment A separates Permitted Principal Uses, Permitted Accessory Uses and Special Permit Uses into distinct blocks per district, so a use appearing in none of the three for a given district has no route to approval there. Recorded 'unknown' rather than 'prohibited' because the Town has never legislated on short-term rental specifically, and whole-house rental of a permitted single-family dwelling is arguably the residential use itself. Absence of a found STR provision is NOT permission. Northumberland sits on the Hudson north of Schuylerville near the Saratoga National Historical Park, so short-stay demand is real and unaddressed. Get a written answer from the Building Department at (518) 792-9179 before underwriting it. Separately, New York State has required every short-term-rental host to register the unit with the State through the county registry since 2025, regardless of what the municipality allows, and Saratoga County HAS adopted a county-level short-term-rental programme: a 3% occupancy tax and a MANDATORY county registry, covering any room or space in a dwelling let for under 30 consecutive days. Registration runs two years, an unregistered host faces fines of up to $500, and the booking platform is separately liable for processing an unregistered listing — so Airbnb and Vrbo will delist. The City of Saratoga Springs runs its own registry alongside it. These are separate questions from whether you can build an ADU — a unit you're allowed to add isn't automatically one you're allowed to rent nightly, so check both.
Good to know
- Residential lot minimum0.21–3 ac — an ADU still has to fit the district's lot and setback envelope.
- UtilityNational Grid territory.
- Building dept(518) 792-9179
- Last reviewed2026-08-02
ADU FAQ — Northumberland, NY
Are ADUs allowed in Northumberland, NY?
Town of Northumberland has 7 districts. All districts prohibit ADUs. Check your address with the free ADU checker, or confirm with the building department at (518) 792-9179.
Do I need a special permit for an ADU in Northumberland?
No. No district in Town of Northumberland permits an ADU, so there is no permit to apply for. Codes change, so verify with the building department at (518) 792-9179 before ruling it out.
Can I use an ADU as a short-term rental in Northumberland?
No local short-term-rental law on record - which is not the same as permission for Town of Northumberland. ADU occupancy and short-term-rental rules are separate: an ADU you can build isn't automatically one you can rent nightly. Confirm both before you count on STR income.
What an ADU costs to build in Northumberland
Permission is one question and budget is another. An 800 sq ft accessory unit here runs roughly $200k–260k at a standard finish, and the per-square-foot rate comes in above a full house because the kitchen, bath, panel and heating plant cost the same either way. See the full cost to build an ADU in Northumberland, priced by size.
More on Northumberland: Full zoning for new construction · ADU build cost · House build cost · All Saratoga County towns
ADU information for Town of Northumberland is compiled from the municipal code (last reviewed 2026-08-02) and provided for decision-support only — not legal or architectural advice. ADU eligibility, size, owner-occupancy and permit conditions vary by district and often carry exceptions; verify with the building department at (518) 792-9179 before relying on any answer. Source: Offsite / Aldo zoning dataset, municipalData.js.