Land Surveying in Marietta, GA

Land Surveying Services in Marietta, Georgia

Marietta is the county seat of Cobb County and one of the principal cities of the Atlanta metropolitan area, with 60,972 people inside 23.4 square miles at the 2020 Census. S&S Land Surveying works out of 549 West Ave in Cedartown, in Polk County, and travels east into Cobb for survey work. Bart is our licensed Georgia land surveyor, and he prepares and seals every plat we deliver.

Before anything else, a Marietta address needs the city limits checked. East Cobb is unincorporated, and residents there typically carry a Marietta mailing address while sitting outside the Marietta city boundary. Dobbins Air Reserve Base is in unincorporated Cobb County as well, not in the city. That line decides who approves the plat: the City of Marietta Planning and Zoning Division at 205 Lawrence Street, or the Cobb County Community Development Agency for the unincorporated county. It is the first question a land surveyor in Marietta, GA should be asking you, not the last.

Inside the city limits, no lot or parcel in Marietta may be combined, subdivided, or have a boundary line revision without prior approval from the city. Where staff determines the proposal does not require dedication of additional street right of way, street improvements, or utility installations beyond house connections, the instrument that carries it is an exemption plat. That covers most residential lot combinations and line adjustments in town, and it is a surveyed and sealed plat rather than a form. Once the city signs the original, the applicant records it with the Cobb County Clerk of Superior Court and reports the plat book number, page number and recording date back to Planning and Zoning.

A full subdivision runs a longer road. Preliminary plat approval is not final plat approval here. The city treats the preliminary plat as conditional approval of the layout, and the final plat goes to the mayor and Council only after the required improvements are installed, including roadways, water distribution lines, sanitary sewer lines and storm drainage facilities. The final plat then has to conform substantially to the preliminary plat or detailed plan as approved. Site development plans are coordinated through the city's Public Works Department.

State law ties those local approvals to the face of the plat. O.C.G.A. § 15-6-67 requires a recorded plat to name the county and any municipality the property lies in, along with the applicable land lots, land districts and sections, and it puts the surveyor's certification on whether every applicable local jurisdiction that requires approval has given it. There is a separate certification for a retracement plat that subdivides nothing and changes no boundary, and that one carries a plain statement that recording implies no local approval at all. Filing is electronic. The Cobb County Clerk of Superior Court runs a separate Real Estate Division, and that is where plats, maps and condominium floor plans are indexed.

Marietta is older ground than most of Cobb. The first plot was laid out in 1833, the General Assembly recognized the community in 1834, and Marietta Square was set at the center with a courthouse on it, so downtown lines predate the subdivision plats that cover the rest of the county. Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park lies between Marietta and Kennesaw, and a federal park boundary against a private line is a retracement problem rather than a fence question. Parcel and assessment records come from the Cobb County Board of Tax Assessors at assessor.cobbcounty.gov, and recorded deeds and plats can be pulled from the clerk's index by land district and land lot.