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Local Rules

Stream buffers and the Chattahoochee River Corridor

If a creek runs through the back of the property, or the river is within a few streets, there are lines on a map that decide what can be built and where. They are worth knowing before the design, not after.

Plan diagram of the protection bands measured back from a stream and from the Chattahoochee River Two stacked plans. The upper shows a stream with a 75 foot buffer split into a 50 foot undisturbed band and a 25 foot impervious setback. The lower shows the Chattahoochee with a 50 foot undisturbed buffer, a 150 foot impervious surface setback and a 2000 foot corridor. Designated stream 50 ft undisturbed nothing disturbed at all 25 ft setback no impervious cover Buildable, subject to permits 75 ft total Chattahoochee River 50 ft undisturbed 150 ft impervious setback no concrete, gravel, pavers or structures Corridor continues to 2,000 ft from the bank 2,000 ft corridor
The bands as the city describes them, drawn to illustrate the sequence rather than to scale. Along a designated stream the protection runs 75 feet, of which the inner 50 stays undisturbed. Along the Chattahoochee the corridor reaches 2,000 feet from the bank, with a 50-foot undisturbed buffer and a 150-foot impervious surface setback inside it.

Stream buffers

The City of Sandy Springs describes stream buffers as 75-foot protection corridors located along designated streams and water bodies. Within that buffer, 50 feet must remain undisturbed, and the remaining 25 feet is an impervious setback area where limited vegetation removal and grading may be allowed. Construction activities inside the regulated areas generally require an approved variance.

For a landscape project that means a dry creek bed, a wall footing, a patio or a bed regrade near a creek is not a design decision on its own. It is a design decision inside a regulated band, and the answer is frequently that the element moves rather than that a variance is sought. The city also requires a tree removal permit for any tree located within a stream buffer, at any diameter, which removes a lot of ambiguity about clearing near a creek.

The Chattahoochee River Corridor

The Chattahoochee forms part of the boundary of Sandy Springs, and the state protects a wide band along it. The corridor covers properties located within 2,000 feet of the banks of the river, running from immediately downstream of Buford Dam to the Fulton and Douglas county boundaries. Properties along the river are subject to a 50-foot undisturbed buffer from the riverbank as required by the State of Georgia, and to a 150-foot impervious surface setback which restricts the installation of impervious materials and structures including concrete, gravel, pavers and buildings.

The city enforces the Atlanta Regional Commission's Metropolitan River Protection Act, and the Act requires local governments to issue permits based on ARC findings, to monitor land-disturbing activities within the corridor, and to enforce the river protection regulations. That is an extra review body in the chain, and it adds time.

The practical effect on a landscape budget is worth stating plainly. Gravel is named in the restriction, which catches gravel paths and gravel parking pads that homeowners rarely think of as impervious construction. On a riverside lot, hard surfaces move uphill of the setback line and the ground between there and the water becomes planting.

The state buffers underneath all of this

Georgia's Erosion and Sedimentation Act establishes a 25-foot buffer along the banks of all state waters, measured horizontally from the point where vegetation has been wrested by normal stream flow or wave action, and a 50-foot buffer along any state waters classified as trout streams. Georgia EPD publishes both figures in its buffer guidance. Single-family residential construction disturbing less than an acre is exempt from the state land-disturbing activity permit, but the buffer requirements still apply to it.

So a small residential project can sit outside the state permit and still be inside a state buffer. Those are separate questions and it is common to answer the first one and assume it settled the second.

How to find out whether any of it applies

The city publishes a Community Development Map that shows whether the Chattahoochee River Corridor or stream buffer regulations apply to a property, with a stream buffer layer that can be enabled in the map's layers panel. The Georgia Department of Natural Resources also publishes an interactive flood map searchable by address, which is worth a look on any lot near a creek, since flooding is described by the city as one of the most common natural hazards in the area given its proximity to the river and surrounding waterways.

What this changes about a design

  • Hard surfaces move first. Patios, paths, gravel areas and walls get located from the setback line inward, not from the house outward.
  • Planting is the tool you still have. Buffer ground is not dead space. It is the part of the property where a woodland or riparian planting is both permitted and the right answer.
  • Drainage discharge needs a legal destination. The most common late-stage surprise on a drainage job is discovering the intended outfall sits inside a buffer.
  • Timelines stretch. ARC review inside the river corridor is an additional step, and it is not fast.

The drainage guide covers what to do with the water once the destination is settled, and the tree rules guide covers the removal permit that applies to any tree inside these areas.

Sources

City of Sandy Springs Natural Resource Protection, River Corridor and Tree Removal Permits pages, describing the Metropolitan River Protection Act as enforced on behalf of the Atlanta Regional Commission. Georgia EPD buffer guidance under the Erosion and Sedimentation Act, O.C.G.A. 12-7.

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