Land Surveying in Buford, GA

Buford Records in Two Counties, and the City's Own Rules Say So

The 2020 Census counted 14,479 residents on the Gwinnett side and 2,665 on the Hall side, 17,144 in all, across 18.15 square miles of land. That line is written into the city's own procedures. Article 11 of the Buford Development Regulations directs the planning director, once a final plat has been certified, to authorize it to be recorded with the Clerk of the Superior Court of Gwinnett County or Hall County, as applicable.

Getting a plat to that point takes a vote. Under the same article, a final plat is not deemed approved until it has been signed by a majority vote of the City Commission, and where septic tanks are proposed, by an authorized representative of the Health Department. Street names must be reviewed and approved before a final plat can be recorded, and a proposed subdivision name cannot duplicate or closely echo another name in Gwinnett County or its municipalities. Rezoning and special use requests run on a published calendar: a filing date, a last date to withdraw, a Planning and Zoning hearing, then a Commissioners hearing.

The two clerks lie in opposite directions from City Hall at 2300 Buford Highway. Gwinnett County deeds, liens and plats go to the Clerk of Superior Court at 75 Langley Drive in Lawrenceville, about thirteen miles south. On the Hall side the filing runs the other way, about eighteen miles northeast, to the Real Estate Division at 116 Spring Street SE in Gainesville. Georgia law requires all maps, plats and plans to be filed electronically with the Clerk of Superior Court through the Georgia Superior Court Clerks' Cooperative Authority, so the plat is transmitted under the surveyor's credentials rather than carried to a counter.

Assessment records are a separate system from the deed index. The Gwinnett County Board of Assessors, at the Gwinnett Justice and Administration Center on Langley Drive, publishes parcels through qPublic, and Hall County publishes its parcels at qpublic.net/ga/hall. Before trusting an acreage figure attached to a Buford address, check which of the two actually returns the parcel.

Lake Sidney Lanier begins at Buford Dam. The Corps of Engineers built the reservoir in the 1950s and still operates it from a project office at 1050 Buford Dam Road. A lot that runs toward the water is a different piece of work from an interior subdivision lot. The plat has to show whether a marked corner sits on the boundary the deed describes or at the water, because those are two different determinations.

Population here has moved more slowly than in the towns around it. The Census Bureau estimated 18,642 residents in 2024, up from 17,144 in 2020, a gain of about nine percent, while Oakwood and Flowery Branch each added more than thirty percent over the same four years. The city publishes an online GIS map and a zoning map adopted in February 2023. Both are useful for a first look at a parcel. Neither one is a survey.

Buford carries National Flood Insurance Program community number 130323. Bart Sims holds the Georgia land surveyor license at S&S Land Surveying and seals every plat personally. Tell us the address or the parcel number and what the survey is for, and we will say which of the two clerks the plat has to go to, then send an estimate at no charge.