A finished barndominium at dusk with warm interior lighting glowing through its large windows.
Broward County High Velocity Hurricane Zone

Barndominium Builders in Davie, FL

Davie is the answer the other Broward city pages on this site point toward when they say real acreage sits in Davie and Southwest Ranches, and the Town's own Land Development Code backs that up with four working rural zoning districts, not a marketing label. Rural Ranches (RR) carries a 2 net acre minimum lot, Agriculture (AG) a full 1 net acre, and A-1 and Estate Dwelling (R-1) sit at roughly 0.80 acre, all concentrated in a mappable rural belt west of I-75 that the Town's own Comprehensive Plan designates Planning Area 2. Inside that belt sits the United Ranches neighborhood, protected by an Overlay District that routes any rezoning through a resident-only Preservation Committee and a Town Council supermajority vote, an unusually strong, politically-backed defense against exactly the kind of subdivision pressure that erodes rural zoning elsewhere in South Florida. The horsetown reputation holds up past the marketing copy too: the Town owns and operates the Joy Yoder Equestrian Center and Oakhill Equestrian Park, redesigned a road-widening project specifically to avoid disrupting an equestrian trail, and runs an annual horse-release program ahead of hurricanes. This is Broward's real acreage market, and we build barndominiums here more than anywhere else in the county.

Davie at a glance

County
Broward County
Population
112,052
Also serving in Broward County
Fort Lauderdale, Pembroke Pines, Hollywood, Miramar, Coral Springs, Pompano Beach
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Building conditions in Davie

What actually changes from one Florida city to the next: who issues the permit, what wind speed the structure has to be engineered to, and what the ground is like. These are the numbers your drawings have to satisfy.

Build conditions for Davie, Broward County: design wind speed 170 mph, outside the High Velocity Hurricane Zone. BUILD CONDITIONS DAVIE, FL Broward CountyOUTSIDE THE HVHZWIND-BORNE DEBRIS ZONE DESIGN WIND SPEED 170 mphFlat HVHZ county figure, western acreage belt includedZONING · RURAL RANCHES (RR)2 net acre minimum lotAgriculture at 1 acre · A-1 and Estate near 0.80PERMIT REVIEW CLOCK30 business daysF.S. 553.792 · fee drops 10% per day lateWHO ISSUES THE PERMITTown of Davie Building Division8800 SW 36th Street · Planning & Zoning sits separately
Build conditions for Davie, drawn from the sourced facts on this page. Every figure above is cited in the quick-facts panel below, with its source and vintage.
Four rural zoning districts, real acreage minimums
The Town of Davie's Land Development Code carries four districts built around one-acre-and-larger lots: RR (Rural Ranches) at 87,120 sq ft, a full 2 net acres, with a footnote requiring at least 70,000 sq ft of that to be net dry land; AG (Agriculture) at 43,560 sq ft, a clean 1 net acre; and A-1 (Agricultural) and R-1 (Estate Dwelling) at 35,000 sq ft, roughly 0.80 acre each. All four allow a 35 ft maximum height. This corrects an older, widely-repeated placeholder figure that described RR as a 1 dwelling-unit-per-acre district; the actual adopted minimum is 2 net acres.

Town of Davie Land Development Code, Chapter 12, Article II §§12-21, 12-24, Article III Division 3 §12-34, Article V §12-81 Table 12-81A, per Ordinance No. O2018-009 (adopted 4 April 2018).

The United Ranches Overlay District
When the Town annexed the unincorporated United Ranches neighborhood in 2006, it created a standing Overlay District to preserve the area's rural character with real procedural teeth: any rezoning, site plan, plat, or variance affecting United Ranches first goes to a five-member Preservation Committee made up of United Ranches residents, requires written notice to every resident in the area, and needs a supermajority vote of the Town Council to approve. The Town still maintains a United Ranches Preservation Board as one of its official boards today. We confirm the exact ordinance wording and supermajority threshold with the Town before quoting the provision verbatim on a specific parcel.

Town of Davie Comprehensive Plan, Future Land Use Element (Boundary Expansion section, Table 2); Town of Davie United Ranches Preservation Board page, davie-fl.gov/405.

Real livestock math, not a vague "horses allowed"
A 35,000 sq ft lot in RR, AG, or A-1 permits up to 8 total head of livestock, no more than 4 of which may be cattle or horses, plus up to 10 rabbits and 25 poultry in a penned area; R-1 adds 2 more head for every additional 35,000 sq ft beyond the base lot. A stable of up to 3 stalls needs a 40 ft setback from any property line, right-of-way, or existing structure, adding 10 ft per additional stall up to a 100 ft maximum. Horses, cattle, goats, sheep, poultry, and rabbits are not a permitted use in any Davie residential district except these four rural ones.

Town of Davie Land Development Code §12-34(B)(1), (2), (8).

Civic equestrian infrastructure, not just a nickname
The Town owns and operates the Joy Yoder Equestrian Center (4.44 acres) and Oakhill Equestrian Park (9.63 acres) as line items in its own Parks, Recreation, Open Space and Conservation inventory, alongside the 18.61-acre Bergeron Rodeo Arena & Grounds. The Comprehensive Plan states directly that equestrian trails concentrate in western Davie because that part of town is more rural in nature, and the Town's own transportation plan redesigned the SW 14th Street road-widening project specifically to avoid disrupting an existing equestrian trail. The Town also runs an annual horse-release program ahead of hurricane season, registered at the same Public Safety Day held at the rodeo grounds.

Town of Davie Comprehensive Plan, Parks, Recreation, Open Space and Conservation Element, Table 1; Transportation Element project #24; Town of Davie 2026 Local Mitigation Strategy Progress Report (memo dated 1 June 2026), Goal #3(b).

Design wind speed
170 mph for a house (Risk Category II), prescribed flat by county under the HVHZ rules rather than read off a coastal contour map, the same figure whether the lot sits deep in western Davie's acreage belt or closer to the coast.

170 mph is the Broward figure per FBC 8th Edition (2023) §1620, confirmed in our Fort Lauderdale/Broward HVHZ research. 175 mph is the Miami-Dade figure and gets wrongly applied to Broward towns including Davie in vendor marketing copy.

Building permit fee schedule
Plan review runs 0.75% of declared construction value with a $25 minimum, and the base permit fee is 0.95% with a $55 minimum, plus a Certificate of Occupancy fee of $170 with 3-business-day processing. A private provider route under F.S. 553.791 knocks 20% off plan review, 20% off inspection, or 40% off both. Several smaller surcharges layer on top: a BORA surcharge, a Training and Education surcharge, a 6% Technology Fee, and two state-mandated surcharges under F.S. 553.721 and F.S. 468.631.

Town of Davie Building Permit Fee Schedule, Exhibit A, "Modified Fees Effective Date: October 1, 2025." We confirm the current fee schedule with the Building Division before finalizing a quote.

Also worth knowing before you build in Davie

A-1 and R-1 are just under a full acre
A-1 (Agricultural) and R-1 (Estate Dwelling) both carry a 35,000 sq ft minimum lot, roughly 0.80 acre, not a full acre. Only AG carries the clean 1-acre (43,560 sq ft) minimum, and only RR requires the full 2 acres. We're precise about which of the four districts a given parcel sits in before quoting an acreage figure to a client.

Town of Davie Land Development Code, Article V §12-81, Table 12-81A.

Where the acreage belt actually sits
The Town's own Comprehensive Plan designates this as Planning Area 2: the westernmost section of Davie, north of Stirling Road, south of SW 14th Street, bound on the west by I-75 and on the east by the southern portion of Pine Island Road, including the annexed United Ranches area. The Plan describes it directly as containing numerous one-acre-lot subdivisions plus larger parcels being platted for estate residences. A second, smaller and more agricultural pocket sits in Planning Area 9, south of Griffin Road and east of the Turnpike, though the Town's own document notes that pocket's agricultural character has diminished under residential demand.

Town of Davie Comprehensive Plan, Future Land Use Element, Data Inventory and Analysis Report, Planning Areas section (Planning Area 2 and Planning Area 9).

A dedicated equestrian-facility code provision, for master-planned acreage
Beyond the by-right livestock allowances in RR/AG/A-1/R-1, Davie's code has a separate mechanism for a shared equestrian facility inside a master-planned community: it can be included within a minimum 35-acre development, capped at one stall per two dwelling units, must be shown on the site plan as an integral part of the community, and its owner/operators must be HOA members. It explains why Davie's horse infrastructure shows up as neighborhood-scale amenities rather than a single named preserve district the way it does in Wellington.

Town of Davie Land Development Code §12-34(I), cross-referenced to the definition at §12-305.

Beekeeping and the Hobby Farm program
Beekeeping is permitted in RR, AG, and A-1 on a minimum 5-acre plot, with hives set at least 100 ft from every property line. Separately, the Town's Hobby Farm Determination and Recognition Program lets a landowner apply for official Hobby Farm status, which requires at least half the parcel in agricultural use and farm-organization membership, and carries a nuisance-immunity protection that transfers with a sale of the property.

Town of Davie Land Development Code §12-34(B)(4); Ordinance No. 2003-044, formalized into the current Hobby Farm Determination and Recognition Program.

State right-to-farm protections carry into the local code
Davie's own ordinance cross-references and defers to Florida's Right to Farm Act (F.S. 823.14), the state preemption on local honeybee regulation (F.S. 586.10), the state preemption on local agritourism regulation on ag-classified land (F.S. 570.85), and the state preemption on local regulation of nonresidential farm buildings, fences, and signs (F.S. 604.50).

Town of Davie Land Development Code §12-34, cross-references section.

Who issues your permit
The Town of Davie Building Division sits at 8800 SW 36th Street, Building A, general line 954-797-1111. The separate Planning & Zoning Division is at 6591 Orange Drive, line 954-797-1103. We confirm which department currently handles a given step of the process by phone before a site visit, since intake and zoning review sit at two different Town addresses.

Town of Davie Building Division Residential Certificate of Occupancy checklist letterhead; davie-fl.gov.

Private well and septic are a normal, active pathway
New construction on private well and septic is still routinely processed in Davie, not a legacy exception. The Building Division's own Residential CO checklist requires either a Health Department approval letter for private water or septic, or a Town Utilities connection receipt, along with Broward County Environmental Protection Department approval and a soil compaction report.

Town of Davie Building Division Residential Certificate of Occupancy checklist.

Impact fees, confirmed categories
The Town's own CO checklist confirms four impact-fee categories are verified before Certificate of Occupancy: Police, Fire, Parks and Recreation, and General Government, plus a separate Fire Rescue Assessment. The fee schedule itself sets these amounts by Town Council resolution rather than stating a dollar figure in the ordinance. We confirm the current dollar amounts directly with the Building Division or Planning & Zoning before finalizing a project budget.

Town of Davie Building Permit Fee Schedule, Exhibit A; Residential Certificate of Occupancy checklist.

CRS Class 7 flood insurance discount
The Town is currently a Class 7 community in FEMA's Community Rating System, the same class as neighboring Fort Lauderdale, worth a 15% National Flood Insurance Program discount in Special Flood Hazard Areas and 5% in Zone X. We confirm the current class against FEMA's own CRS community list before relying on it for a specific project, since it's set city-by-city and Fort Lauderdale's class doesn't automatically apply here.

Town of Davie 2026 Local Mitigation Strategy Progress Report (memo dated 1 June 2026), Goal #8(a).

A real drainage split between western and eastern Davie
The Town's Comprehensive Plan sets a different maximum stormwater discharge rate on either side of SW 100th Avenue: 3/4 inch per acre per day west of it, versus 1.5 inches per acre per day east of it. The west basin runs off a South Florida Water Management District pump station near US 27 and Griffin Road, and an equalizer structure at the 100th Avenue divide can balance water levels between the two basins during a storm. It's a genuine, Davie-specific engineering distinction between the rural western acreage belt and the denser eastern half of town.

Town of Davie Comprehensive Plan, stormwater management provisions.

Population, and a growth story built on annexation
112,052 people as of the 2024 Census estimate, up from 75,720 in 2000. A visible jump between 2005 and 2006 in the Town's own figures traces directly to the 2006 annexation of United Ranches and Pine Island Ridge, folded into the Town's count that year. Davie is also home to the South Florida Education Center, including Nova Southeastern University, Broward College, FAU, and McFatter Technical Center, a real secondary source of demand for acreage buyers beyond the equestrian market.

US Census Vintage 2024 subcounty estimates; Town of Davie Comprehensive Plan, Future Land Use and Economic Elements.

Exposure Category C is mandatory
There is no Exposure B anywhere in the HVHZ, however sheltered the parcel. A Davie lot tucked well back from any coastline still has to be engineered to Exposure C, which adds real load to the structure.

FBC §1620.3.

What the HVHZ demands of a metal building
Roof and wall sheets need to be 24 gauge minimum against the 26 and 29 gauge most national kit packages ship with, and a Florida-licensed engineer has to seal the site-specific adaptation, foundation, and anchorage as one system. That is a real barrier to an out-of-state stock metal building package on a Davie acreage lot.

FBC §2223.8.4, §2223.8.5, §2222.4.3, §2223.5.

New in 2026: offsite construction as of right
An offsite-constructed dwelling now has to be permitted as of right in any zoning district that allows dwellings, including RR, AG, A-1, and R-1, which removes a zoning argument that used to stall kit and prefabricated barndominium projects. It does not, however, exempt the dwelling from HVHZ engineering or from full residential permitting.

F.S. 553.385, created by HB 803 (Ch. 2026-63), effective 1 July 2026.

An excavator grading a compacted building pad on a cleared lot, with survey stakes and a drainage swale visible.
Below the slab

The expensive surprises are in the ground, not the building

Most of Broward County rates poorly for dwellings in the soil survey, and the reason is water sitting close to the surface rather than weak ground. That makes the pad elevation and the drainage plan the two line items most likely to move your budget. We price the dirt before we price the building.

What we build in Davie

Every service we offer is available across Broward County, from a shell kit you erect yourself to a finished home we hand you the keys to. What a build costs depends far more on the parcel than on square footage, so we price against your land rather than publishing a rate card.

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What a build looks like

Three stages every Davie project passes through, from a raw parcel to a finished home. Site work first, because that is where the budget is decided.

Aerial view of an undeveloped rural Florida lot with cleared grass, pine scrub and a sandy access track.
Stage one

The parcel

Zoning, setbacks, flood zone and utility access get checked before anything is drawn.

An excavator grading a compacted building pad on a cleared lot, with survey stakes and a drainage swale visible.
Stage two

Pad and permit

Clearing, grading and a compacted pad, while the submittal works through Broward County.

A finished barndominium at dusk with warm interior lighting glowing through its large windows.
Stage three

Frame to finish

Shell erected and dried in, then systems, insulation and interior finish through to CO.

Those are the rules for Broward County. Tell us what you want to build and we will draw it to them.

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Where we build around Davie

Broward County and the rural land around it. The buildable acreage for a project this size usually sits outside the city limits, which is frequently what changes who issues your permit.

Our Davie service area, covering Broward County and the surrounding rural acreage. We build across this area from our office in Lake Mary, FL — this map marks the territory we serve, not a branch location.

Keep reading

The questions that usually come next once you know what Davie allows.

Is It Legal in Florida?

Classification, zoning, and what the High Velocity Hurricane Zone actually requires in Broward County.

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Barndominium Cost Guide

Sourced ranges by tier, plus the Florida adders that land on top of a national average.

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How Long Does It Take?

Census build-duration data, and the Florida statute capping permit review at 30 business days.

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Sources for this page

The primary documents behind the Davie figures above. We would rather you checked them than took our word for it.

Nearby areas we build in

Close to Davie, though the permitting authority and wind requirements can differ once you cross a county line.

Fort Lauderdale

Broward County

HVHZ
Pembroke Pines

Broward County

HVHZ
Hollywood

Broward County

HVHZ

Building in Davie: common questions

12 questions we get asked most often about building in Davie. If yours is not on the list, ask it directly.

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How much land do I actually need to build a barndominium in Davie?
It depends on which of the Town's four rural districts your parcel sits in, and we're precise about that distinction because it matters. RR (Rural Ranches) requires a full 2 net acres, 87,120 sq ft, with a footnote requiring at least 70,000 sq ft of that to be net dry land rather than wetland or canal. AG (Agriculture) requires a clean 1 net acre, 43,560 sq ft. A-1 (Agricultural) and R-1 (Estate Dwelling) both sit at 35,000 sq ft, roughly 0.80 acre. All four districts allow a 35 ft maximum building height. If you've seen a figure describing Davie's rural zoning as 1 dwelling unit per acre across the board, that's an older placeholder; the RR minimum is genuinely 2 acres, read directly from the Town's own adopted code table.
Is Davie's horsetown reputation real, or is that just marketing?
It's real, and it's backed by public infrastructure the Town paid for and maintains, not just a nickname real estate agents like. Davie owns and operates the Joy Yoder Equestrian Center and Oakhill Equestrian Park as line items in its own parks inventory, plus the Bergeron Rodeo Arena & Grounds. The Town's own Comprehensive Plan states plainly that equestrian trails concentrate in western Davie because that part of town is genuinely rural. When the Town planned a road-widening project on SW 14th Street, it built in alternative design measures specifically to avoid disrupting an existing equestrian trail rather than just paving over it. And the Town runs an annual hurricane horse-release program registered at the same rodeo grounds during its Public Safety Day. That's institutional planning around horse ownership, not a marketing motif.
What is United Ranches, and why does it come up when people talk about protected rural land in Davie?
United Ranches is a neighborhood the Town annexed from unincorporated Broward County in 2006. When it did, Davie created a United Ranches Overlay District specifically to preserve the area's rural character with real procedural protection: any rezoning, site plan, plat, or variance affecting the area first goes through a five-member Preservation Committee made up of United Ranches residents, requires written notice to every resident, and needs a supermajority vote of the Town Council to pass. The Town still maintains a standing United Ranches Preservation Board today. That's an unusually strong, politically-backed layer of protection against exactly the kind of rezoning pressure that erodes rural land elsewhere in Broward, on top of the ordinary RR/AG/A-1/R-1 zoning that already governs the area. We confirm the exact ordinance wording with the Town before citing it on a specific parcel.
Can I actually keep horses on my property in Davie?
Yes, in the four rural districts. A 35,000 sq ft lot in RR, AG, or A-1 permits up to 8 total head of livestock, no more than 4 of which may be cattle or horses, plus rabbits and poultry in a penned area; R-1 scales up further, adding 2 more head for every additional 35,000 sq ft of lot beyond the base minimum. A stable of up to 3 stalls needs a 40 ft setback from any property line or existing structure, growing by 10 ft per additional stall up to a 100 ft cap. Outside these four districts, horses and other livestock are not a permitted residential use anywhere in Davie, which is exactly why the acreage belt west of I-75 is where the real horse properties concentrate.
What does being in the High Velocity Hurricane Zone mean for a metal building in Davie?
It means the structural approach is different from most of Florida, acreage lot or not. Broward and Miami-Dade are the entire HVHZ, no partial-county lines, so every Davie address is fully inside it. Design wind speed for a house is 170 mph, prescribed flat by the code rather than read off a coastal map, so a horse property deep in western Davie carries the same wind rating as a lot near the coast. There's no Exposure B anywhere in the HVHZ either; even a sheltered inland parcel gets engineered to Exposure C. Roof and wall sheets need to be 24 gauge minimum against the lighter gauge most national kit packages ship with, and a Florida-licensed engineer has to seal the site-specific foundation and anchorage design as one system.
Is Davie's design wind speed 170 mph or 175 mph?
170 mph, for a Risk Category II structure, which covers a house. 175 mph is the Miami-Dade figure, and we see it applied incorrectly to Davie and other Broward towns in vendor marketing copy often enough that it's worth correcting directly. The Florida Building Code sets Broward's design wind speed flat by county rather than reading it off a contour map, so it's the same 170 mph whether your lot sits in the acreage belt west of I-75 or closer to the coast.
Who do I actually deal with to get a permit in Davie?
The Town of Davie Building Division, at 8800 SW 36th Street, Building A, general line 954-797-1111. The Planning & Zoning Division sits separately at 6591 Orange Drive, line 954-797-1103. Since intake and zoning review happen at two different Town addresses, we confirm which department handles a given step before a site visit. And since it's the Town of Davie, not the City of Davie, that's the correct governing terminology you'll see on every official document.
What do impact fees and permit fees look like in Davie?
The base building permit fee is 0.95% of declared construction value with a $55 minimum, plan review runs 0.75% with a $25 minimum, and Certificate of Occupancy is a flat $170 with 3-business-day processing, plus several smaller state and county surcharges layered on top. Using a private provider under F.S. 553.791 for plan review and inspection knocks 40% off the base fee. Separately, the Town confirms four impact-fee categories before CO issuance: Police, Fire, Parks and Recreation, and General Government, plus a Fire Rescue Assessment, but those dollar amounts are set by a periodically-updated Town Council resolution rather than the fee schedule ordinance itself. We confirm the current impact-fee dollar figures directly with the Building Division before finalizing a project budget.
Can I build on well water and a septic system on a Davie acreage lot?
Yes, and it's a routine, currently-processed pathway here, not a legacy exception. The Building Division's own Certificate of Occupancy checklist requires either a Health Department approval letter for private water or septic, or a Town Utilities connection receipt, along with Broward County Environmental Protection Department sign-off and a soil compaction report. Much of western Davie's acreage belt is exactly the kind of low-density area where well and septic remains the normal setup.
What's Davie's flood insurance situation?
The Town is currently a Class 7 community in FEMA's Community Rating System, the same class as neighboring Fort Lauderdale, which is worth a 15% discount on National Flood Insurance Program premiums in Special Flood Hazard Areas and 5% in Zone X. CRS class is set city by city, so we confirm Davie's current class against FEMA's own community list before relying on it for a specific project rather than assuming a neighboring city's class transfers.
Is Davie actually growing, or is the rural acreage belt shrinking under development pressure?
Davie's population reached 112,052 in the 2024 Census estimate, up from 75,720 in 2000, but a meaningful share of that growth traces to the 2006 annexation of United Ranches and Pine Island Ridge rather than new construction eating into the rural belt. The Town's own planning documents describe Davie as approaching build-out with a limited but adequate vacant land supply, and the United Ranches Overlay District's supermajority-vote protection specifically shields that neighborhood from casual rezoning. The smaller agricultural pocket in Planning Area 9, near Griffin Road, has seen more conversion pressure as roadway access improved, which is a fair distinction to draw: Planning Area 2, the core western acreage belt, is the more durable long-term bet.
Does the agricultural or equestrian use on my lot exempt the house itself from normal permitting?
No. A barndominium built in Davie's RR, AG, A-1, or R-1 districts is a residential use, full stop, even on a 2-acre RR lot with horses and a hobby farm alongside it. Florida's farm-building exemption under F.S. 604.50 covers a genuine barn, stable, or storage structure, never a dwelling, no matter how agricultural the surrounding use or how large the parcel. The house goes through the Town's normal residential permitting process and full Florida Building Code review like any other Davie home.

Building in Davie?

Start with the plan. Tell us what you want to build and we will draw it, then confirm what Broward County will actually let you put on the parcel and what wind load it has to meet. That conversation costs nothing.

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