Mack Development Group builds custom homes in Canton and Woodstock, Georgia, in Cherokee County. This is our deepest market: Mack Development and our sister firm Mack Engineering LLC have worked on well over 20 custom homes here and delivered engineering, site design, and construction on several complete communities in Canton and Woodstock.

Neighborhoods & areas we build in

• Trinity Oaks Estates — Canton; the 10-lot subdivision Mack Engineering engineered.
• Iron Mill Estates — Canton; the 23-lot subdivision Mack Engineering engineered.
• BridgeMill — Canton (BridgeMill Parkway / Sixes Road).
• Towne Lake — a planned community in southern Cherokee County near Woodstock.
• The Union Hill and Hickory Flat corridors — where Mack Engineering delivered the Union Hill Medical Building (7.49 acres, Canton) and the Hickory Flat Medical Building (3.95 acres).
• Waleska — permitted through Cherokee County’s Development Service Center.

What’s different about building in Canton & Woodstock

Cherokee County is where land value works in a buyer’s favor. Unincorporated county zoning is deliberately estate-scaled: R-80 Estate Residential requires 80,000 square feet with 120 feet of width, a 65-foot front setback on an arterial, 50 feet on a collector, and 35 feet on a local street, and 50-foot side and rear yards. R-60 requires 60,000 square feet and 110 feet of width with 40-foot sides and rear. R-40 and R-30 require 40,000 and 30,000 square feet with 100 feet of width, 15-foot sides and 30-foot rear yards, then R-20 and R-15 step down to 20,000 and 15,000 square feet. Inside the City of Canton the numbers differ: R-40 requires 40,000 square feet but 150 feet of width, with a 30-foot front setback on local streets and 50 feet on all others, 15-foot sides and a 30-foot rear yard; R-20 requires 20,000 square feet with 100 feet of width. Those are two different rulebooks on lots that may sit a mile apart.

Utilities split the same way. In unincorporated Cherokee County, water and sewer come from the Cherokee County Water and Sewer Authority; inside Canton, the City of Canton Water and Sewer Department serves the property; inside any other city, that city’s department does. Septic approval is a Georgia Department of Public Health matter handled through the North Georgia Health District, and Georgia’s rules still apply — connection to public sewer is required where a system is available within 200 feet of the property line or in an abutting right-of-way, and an on-site permit is denied where bedrock or seasonal groundwater sits less than two feet below the bottom of the absorption field.

Buffers in the unincorporated county are 50 feet of undisturbed natural vegetative buffer on both banks of all streams, measured from the top of bank, plus an additional 25 feet in which all impervious cover is prohibited. The Etowah River carries a 150-foot undisturbed natural buffer. Cherokee County Engineering reviews and enforces these. Neither Canton nor Woodstock publishes stream buffer ordinance text we could locate, so on a city lot we design to the state minimums of 25 feet on state waters and 50 feet on trout streams and confirm with the city directly.

Permitting in Canton & Woodstock

There are three separate permitting authorities in this market, and getting it wrong costs weeks. The Cherokee County Development Service Center permits all construction activity in unincorporated Cherokee County and the City of Waleska. The City of Canton permits inside Canton through its Building and Safety Services Department, with Engineering handling site work. The City of Woodstock permits inside Woodstock through the Building and Safety Division of Community Development, and its Development Review Team reviews and approves preliminary and final plats, site plans, subdivision plans, and as-builts. A mailing address that reads “Canton, GA” or “Woodstock, GA” is very often an unincorporated county lot, where the county — not the city — permits the work.

None of the three publishes a residential plan review turnaround. That is the honest answer, and it is why local experience matters more here than in Alpharetta or Forsyth, where the clock is published. What we can tell you is the sequence, because we have run it repeatedly: in the unincorporated county, a Development/Land Disturbance Permit is required for clearing and grading of land of one acre or more, while clearing and grading of less than one acre is regulated by an Erosion Control Permit. The permit is also triggered by removal or destruction of trees or other vegetation, excavation and filling, deposition of debris, and any disturbance of soil within 200 feet of state waters. Residential lot grading plans have their own checklist.

This is also the market where our track record is not a claim but a file. Mack Engineering engineered Trinity Oaks Estates, a 10-lot subdivision in Canton, and Iron Mill Estates, a 23-lot subdivision in Canton, plus commercial site development at the Union Hill Medical Building on 7.49 acres in Canton and the Hickory Flat Medical Building on 3.95 acres. Across Canton and Woodstock, Mack Development and Mack Engineering have worked on well over 20 custom homes. When we tell you how a Cherokee County plan review actually behaves, that is where it comes from.

Frequently asked questions