Zoning

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I did some research on zoning. The lot is zoned R-5 which meant nothing to me. I found the zoning ordinance for Atlanta on municode.com. I learned that R-5 allows you to build either a single-family or two-family dwelling. Additionally, the zoning ordinance specifies how much of a front, rear, and side yard you must have, how much of the lot you can cover, as well as how many square feet of livable area you can have (any heated/cooled space is considered in this).

Here is the summary of R-5 requirements:
- Dwelling must be 30 feet back from the front property line, 7 feet from the side and rear property lines (these are referred to as setbacks)
- Lot coverage can not exceed 55% of the entire lot area (any paved area is included in this)
- The maximum floor area ratio (this is the livable area I mentioned above) is 50% of the lot area
- The minimum size of the lot should be 7500 sq ft

What I found interesting is the minimum lot size. Our lot is only 5,760 sq ft. Does this mean we're off the hook on some of the requirements? Only a little. The maximum floor area ratio increases to 65% not to exceed 3,750 sq ft. This helps, but we have a lot that is only 117 ft deep. The floor area ration increase is the only reprieve we get for the smaller lot.

Here's a simple boundary survey of the lot showing the dimensions we have to work with.

So a 30 foot front setback is pretty constraining for the lot. Not to mention it doesn't fit with the other houses on the block. Most houses seem much closer than 30 feet from the front property line. So now we get to learn about zoning variances and how those work. There's a process in place where you can petition the Board of Zoning Adjustment to alter some of the zoning requirements for your project. Time to spend some time on the atlantaga.gov website.