---
type: "Bill"
title: "Land use permits; issuance by Department of Transportation."
description: "Allows the Virginia Department of Transportation (Department) to issue land use permits to the owner of a private residence or business for water and sewer service to cross the Department's right-of-way when no viable alternative exists to provide potable water or to transfer sewer effluent to a qualified drain field as long as the utilities are marked in accord with requirements established by the Department. Currently, the Department may issue land use permits only to a public service company, a company owning or operating an interstate natural gas pipeline, a franchised cable television systems operator, a company that has registered as an operator and has provided proper notification, or a person providing utility service solely for his own agricultural or residential use when the utilities are located on the property owned by the person."
jurisdiction: "us/states/va"
legislature: "Virginia General Assembly"
session: "2018"
identifier: "HB 698"
citation: "Virginia HB 698 (2018)"
classification: ["bill"]
subjects: ["Administration of Government", "Public Service Companies", "Transportation"]
status: "enacted"
primary_sponsors: ["Charles D. Poindexter"]
version_count: 2
action_count: 14
vote_count: 5
first_action: "2018-01-09"
last_action: "2018-03-09"
source: "openstates"
source_identifier: "ocd-bill/9638718e-b1d8-4998-9858-7b1bb2a19ced"
source_url: "http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?181+sum+HB698"
source_hash: "0a9047e4b936ba9a052914715f2cbd6474526e8d2c35d42bbac48557e22efdef"
vintage: "2026-07-01"
source_snapshot: "https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump"
retrieved_at: "2026-07-06"
confidence: "reported"
tags: ["legislation", "bill", "us-va"]
---

# Virginia HB 698 (2018) — Land use permits; issuance by Department of Transportation.

Allows the Virginia Department of Transportation (Department) to issue land use permits to the owner of a private residence or business for water and sewer service to cross the Department's right-of-way when no viable alternative exists to provide potable water or to transfer sewer effluent to a qualified drain field as long as the utilities are marked in accord with requirements established by the Department. Currently, the Department may issue land use permits only to a public service company, a company owning or operating an interstate natural gas pipeline, a franchised cable television systems operator, a company that has registered as an operator and has provided proper notification, or a person providing utility service solely for his own agricultural or residential use when the utilities are located on the property owned by the person.

## Version chain

The bill's text revisions, in order — the diff chain from filing to enrollment.

1. **House: Bill text as passed House and Senate (HB698ER)** (committee substitute) — [source](http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?181+ful+HB698ER)
2. **House: Prefiled and ordered printed; offered 01/10/18 18104497D** (committee substitute) — [source](http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?181+ful+HB698)

## Votes

- Passed Senate — **40–0** (pass) · legislature
- Constitutional reading dispensed — **40–0** (pass) · legislature
- Read third time and passed House BLOCK VOTE — **99–0** (pass) · legislature
- Reported from Commerce and Labor — **21–0** (pass) · legislature
- Reported from Commerce and Labor — **14–0** (pass) · legislature

## Sponsors

- Charles D. Poindexter — primary (person)

## Timeline

The legislative action history — every referral, reading, and vote.

- **2018-01-09** Prefiled and ordered printed; offered 01/10/18 18104497D `introduction`
- **2018-01-09** Referred to Committee on Commerce and Labor `referral-committee`
- **2018-01-25** Read first time `reading-1`
- **2018-01-26** Read second time and engrossed `reading-2`
- **2018-01-29** Read third time and passed House BLOCK VOTE (99-Y 0-N) `passage, reading-3`
- **2018-01-30** Constitutional reading dispensed
- **2018-01-30** Referred to Committee on Commerce and Labor `referral-committee`
- **2018-02-22** Read third time `reading-3`
- **2018-02-26** Enrolled
- **2018-02-26** Signed by Speaker
- **2018-02-28** Signed by President
- **2018-03-02** Enrolled Bill communicated to Governor on March 2, 2018
- **2018-03-02** Governor's Action Deadline Midnight, March 9, 2018
- **2018-03-09** Approved by Governor-Chapter 270 (effective 7/1/18) `executive-signature`

## Source

OpenStates / OpenCivicData bulk snapshot [2026-07-01](https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump); origin `ocd-bill/9638718e-b1d8-4998-9858-7b1bb2a19ced`. Confidence: reported (aggregated from official Virginia legislature records).