Land Surveying in Roswell, GA

Roswell Records, Plat Review and the River Corridor

Roswell is the largest of the ten cities under this hub by land area, 40.7 square miles, plus another 1.3 square miles of water, and it was incorporated in 1854. It records in Fulton County. The Chattahoochee River runs inside the city limits, the Cobb County line lies along the west-southwest side of town and the Cherokee County line lies to the north-northwest, so the surrounding index changes in more than one direction.

Fulton County deeds and plats go to the Clerk of Superior and Magistrate Courts Real Estate Division at the Lewis R. Slaton Courthouse, 136 Pryor Street SW in downtown Atlanta.

Local plat review starts with a conversation, by rule. Roswell's Community Development Department is at 38 Hill Street, Suite G-30, and it will not accept a development review application until staff has held an orientation meeting with the applicant. A pre-application conference with the Zoning Director establishes whether the job is a minor plat or a major plat. The Zoning Director then approves or denies a minor plat within ten working days of a complete application, and the owner is responsible for recording the approved plat with Fulton County Superior Court.

Roswell also has a digital submission requirement that catches firms working here for the first time. Since November 1, 2017, every development plan and every final plat or as-built delivered to the city must be submitted digitally in addition to the hard copies, and permits are not issued until the digital submission passes review. The city set the format so the data drops straight into its GIS, and it states that the digital versions must be precise enough to convert cleanly. Deviating from the standards requires prior approval, and failing to follow them can get an application denied.

The river drives the other half of the work. Under the Metropolitan River Protection Act, land within 2,000 feet of both banks of the Chattahoochee falls in a protected corridor administered by the Atlanta Regional Commission. Inside that corridor there is a 50 foot undisturbed vegetative buffer along the river, a 35 foot undisturbed buffer along flowing streams, and a 150 foot impervious surface setback. Fill in the 100 year floodplain has to be balanced with an equal volume of cut, flood flows may not be blocked, and structures in the 500 year floodplain are limited to 35 feet above existing grade. Those are survey lines before they are anything else, and somebody has to put them on a drawing.

Away from the river, Roswell's streams keep the buffer question alive across the city. Big Creek, Willeo Creek, Hog Wallow Creek, Rocky Creek, Seven Branch and the Little River all run inside the limits. The Roswell Historic District adds a second layer downtown, where structures date from as early as 1837 and the lot lines are as old as the buildings. Retracement there tends to be slow, deed-heavy and worth doing properly.

S&S Land Surveying sits at 549 West Ave in Cedartown, and the plat that comes out of it carries the seal of William "Bart" Sims, the firm's licensed Georgia land surveyor. Georgia is the only state the license covers.