Land Surveying in Sandy Springs, GA

Sandy Springs Plat Review and the River Corridor

Sandy Springs covers 37.7 square miles inside Fulton County and was incorporated in 2005. Three other counties border it: Cobb on the west-southwest side, DeKalb to the southeast and Gwinnett to the east. Everything inside the city limits records in Fulton, but the neighbors on three sides do not, which is why an adjoiner deed pulled for a Sandy Springs boundary can turn up in a different courthouse.

Fulton County deeds and plats are recorded by the Clerk of Superior and Magistrate Courts Real Estate Division, in the Deeds and Records Room on the ground floor of the Lewis R. Slaton Courthouse at 136 Pryor Street SW, due south of Sandy Springs. The county also operates its North Service Center at 7741 Roswell Road inside the city. Valuation and parcel detail are not in the deed index. The Fulton County Board of Assessors carries those on qPublic, where a search can start from an owner name, a street address or a parcel number.

The city sorts plat review into three tracks, and which one you land in is decided by lot count and infrastructure rather than by acreage. A minor plat review covers a subdivision that creates three or fewer lots or combines three or fewer lots, with no extension of utilities or municipal infrastructure and no new streets. A final plat review is required once the subdivision creates more than three lots, or needs a utility or infrastructure extension, or needs new streets or roads. There is a preliminary plat review as well. Applications go through the city's online permitting portal, and an applicant can also book time with a permit technician at City Hall, 1 Galambos Way.

The end of the process is worth planning for. Once the city approves the plat, a city official signs the approved plat survey, the applicant picks it up, the applicant records it with Fulton County, and then a digital copy of the approved and recorded plat has to go back to the City of Sandy Springs. The associated document list also includes a flood plain checklist and a flood indemnification form, which tells you how often flood mapping comes up here.

The Chattahoochee is the reason. Sandy Springs enforces the Atlanta Regional Commission's Metropolitan River Protection Act rules for property inside the river corridor, which reaches 2,000 feet from the banks of the Chattahoochee and runs from immediately downstream of Buford Dam to the Fulton and Douglas county boundaries. Property along the river carries a 50 foot undisturbed buffer from the riverbank, required by the State of Georgia, and a 150 foot impervious surface setback that restricts concrete, gravel, pavers and structures. The act requires the city to issue permits based on Atlanta Regional Commission findings, to monitor land-disturbing activity in the corridor and to enforce the rules.

Sandy Springs publishes a Community Development Map an owner can use to see whether the river corridor or the stream buffer rules reach their property, with a stream buffer layer that can be switched on, and it points to the Georgia Department of Natural Resources flood map for current and proposed floodplain information by address. Those are good starting points, though neither one sets a boundary or an elevation. Long Island Creek, Marsh Creek, Nancy Creek, Ball Mill Creek, Heards Creek and Powers Branch all run inside the city, so buffered water shows up on a lot of otherwise ordinary lots.

The firm operates from 549 West Ave in Cedartown. William "Bart" Sims holds the Georgia land surveyor license and puts his seal on the plats. S&S is licensed in Georgia and works there only.