Mack Development Group builds custom homes in Roswell, Georgia, in Fulton County — principally teardown-and-rebuild and infill work inside established neighborhoods. Roswell is the one north Fulton city where a new house can require board approval, so our sister firm Mack Engineering LLC maps the overlay, buffer, and tree obligations before design.

Neighborhoods & areas we build in

• Historic Roswell — the Historic Overlay District, where a Certificate of Appropriateness is required for new construction, additions, and demolition.
• Martin’s Landing — an established Roswell community.
• The Chattahoochee River Corridor (-RC Overlay) — where the Atlanta Regional Commission reviews any building or land disturbance.
• The Holcomb Bridge Road / GA-400 node.
• Neighborhood Conservation Overlay areas — established neighborhoods at least 25 years old where the city can regulate scale, style, height, and setbacks.

What’s different about building in Roswell

Roswell has the widest stream buffers and the only design-review exposure for new houses in north Fulton. On a perennial stream you keep 100 feet of undisturbed natural vegetative buffer on both banks plus a further 50 feet where all impervious cover is prohibited; on an intermittent stream it is 50 feet plus 25. No septic tank or drain field may sit in either the buffer or the setback. State buffers of 25 feet on all state waters and 50 feet on trout streams also carry through the erosion ordinance.

The zoning is estate-scaled. AG-43 requires 43,560 square feet with 120 feet of width; RS-87 requires 87,120 square feet — two acres — with 200 feet of width, 60-foot street setbacks, 25-foot interior sides, and a 50-foot rear yard; RS-30 requires 30,000 square feet with 120 feet of width. All three cap building coverage at 25% and height at 35 feet or two and a half stories. Roswell’s code signals the utility picture directly: RS-87 lots typically have public water but do not necessarily have access to public sanitary sewer, while RS-30 and smaller districts typically have both. Sewer taps are a Fulton County matter.

Trees are regulated by density units, not canopy percentage. A permit is required to remove any tree of 3 inches diameter at breast height or more that normally reaches 15 feet in height. Lots under an acre platted for a house are exempt for non-specimen trees, but every house lot of one acre or greater must maintain a minimum tree density: 20 units per acre in Estate and Suburban Residential character areas, 30 in most others, 15 in the GA-400/Holcomb Bridge node, and 10 in the Downtown Historic Districts. Specimen tree recompense is $500 per tree density unit, doubling to $1,000 per unit if the tree was removed without a permit, and where no survey exists the city presumes 20 inches of diameter per tree removed. Fee in lieu is $220 per unit and can cover no more than 90% of the requirement, and no land disturbance permit issues until the fee is paid. That single line item can run into five figures on a wooded Roswell acre, and we price it at feasibility rather than discovering it at permit.

Permitting in Roswell

Roswell issues its own permits through Community Development, with land disturbance handled by Engineering and demolition by the Building Division. Roswell does not publish a residential building plan review turnaround, which is the single biggest scheduling unknown in this market. It does publish two decision clocks: a land disturbance permit decision within 14 calendar days, and a minor Certificate of Appropriateness within 10 working days.

The Certificate of Appropriateness is the thing that makes Roswell different. Historic Review applies to all property in the Historic Overlay District and to any designated Historic Landmark, and it is required for new construction, additions and expansions, and tree removal, land disturbance, or grading. The code is explicit: no land disturbance permit and no building permit shall be issued without approval of a Certificate of Appropriateness on the property. Minor certificates go to the Zoning Director; anything not on the minor list, including new house construction, is a Major Certificate decided by the Historic Preservation Commission at a public meeting. Outside the overlay, Design Plan Review is not required for a single-family dwelling on a single lot — but the Neighborhood Conservation Overlay can be applied to established neighborhoods at least 25 years old and can regulate building scale, mass, materials, architectural style, height, number of stories, setbacks, building width, porches, driveways, paving, and parking location. That is the ordinance most likely to shape a Roswell teardown-rebuild.

Land disturbance thresholds: a Minor Land Disturbance Permit is required for a single-family house where disturbance is under 43,560 square feet and the lot is not part of a larger common plan, for a pool, addition, deck, or freestanding retaining wall over 8 feet, for any disturbance of 5,000 square feet or more on a house lot, and for any disturbance on a house lot within 200 feet of state waters. Stormwater runoff reduction is triggered between 1,000 and 5,000 square feet of new or replaced impervious cover. Permits expire after six months if unissued or after six consecutive months of inactivity, and all work must be completed within two years. Along the Chattahoochee, the -RC River Corridor Overlay gives the Atlanta Regional Commission authority to review any building or land disturbance, with a 50-foot river buffer, 35-foot stream buffers, and a 150-foot impervious setback.

Frequently asked questions