FENCE RULES – CLARKSTON (CITY), GEORGIA

OVERVIEW

Residential fences are permitted on private property within City of Clarkston, subject to local regulations. For properties located outside City of Clarkston municipal limits, DeKalb County regulates fences in unincorporated areas.

In City of Clarkston, residential fence standards appear mainly in Appendix A – Zoning, including Sec. 536, Screening, Sec. 537, Fences in Buffers, and Sec. 538, Other Fence Standards. Permit administration appears through the Planning and Development Department and the City of Clarkston Building Permit Application. Related provisions appear in Chapter 5 for property maintenance, flood damage prevention, wetlands protection, and pool/spa barriers; Chapter 21 for soil erosion, sedimentation, and pollution control; Chapter 22 for stormwater management and stream buffers; and Chapter 15 for historic preservation.

This page focuses on typical single-family residential fencing. If the jurisdiction’s adopted materials do not state a specific limit or requirement, this page notes that the code does not specify one.

Compiled From the City of Clarkston Code of Ordinances, Appendix A – Zoning, Chapter 5 – Buildings; Construction; Related Matters, Chapter 15 – Planning and Development, Chapter 21 – Soil Erosion, Sedimentation and Pollution Control, Chapter 22 – Stormwater Management and Control, the City of Clarkston Building Permits page, Permits and Inspections materials, Code Compliance Information, Historic Preservation Commission materials, the Land Disturbance Permit package, and the City of Clarkston Building Permit Application, as of June 2026.

GOVERNANCE

The City of Clarkston regulates residential fences through its zoning, building-permit, property-maintenance, floodplain, stormwater, stream-buffer, wetlands, land-disturbance, and historic-preservation provisions.

The principal zoning standards for residential fences appear in Appendix A – Zoning, especially Sec. 536, Screening, Sec. 537, Fences in Buffers, and Sec. 538, Other Fence Standards. The Clemsil Overlay District also contains fence standards for properties within that overlay.

The Planning and Development Department administers building permits, inspections, and compliance with building and zoning codes. The Building Permit Application identifies Fence as a residential permit type.

The Historic Preservation Commission administers certificate-of-appropriateness review for designated historic properties and properties in designated historic districts. The Public Works Director or designee administers flood-damage-prevention and related floodplain provisions. Code compliance and property-maintenance provisions apply to unsafe, deteriorated, or poorly maintained fences and walls.

PERMIT AND APPROVAL REQUIREMENTS

• Building Permit: A Building Permit is required for a new fence, fence replacement, or fence repair including fence posts. The City’s permit table lists fence repair not including fence posts as not requiring a Building Permit.

• Building Permit Application: The City of Clarkston Building Permit Application includes Fence as a residential permit type. The application also includes right-of-way encroachment, retaining wall, and land-disturbance fields or categories.

• Right-of-Way Encroachment: The Building Permit Application asks whether the proposed work involves a right-of-way encroachment. Fence work must not be treated as approved to encroach into a public right-of-way unless the City’s applicable right-of-way process allows it.

• Retaining Walls: The City’s permit table lists retaining walls less than 48 inches as not requiring a Building Permit and retaining walls 4 feet or greater as requiring a Building Permit. This is a retaining-wall permit threshold, not an ordinary fence-height rule.

• Land Disturbance: Grading and other land-disturbing activities require a Land Disturbance Permit. Chapter 21 exempts minor land-disturbing activities such as fences where they result in minor soil erosion, but fence work that is not minor, is part of a larger common plan, disturbs one acre or more, or is within specified state-waters proximity may require Chapter 21 review.

• Floodplain Review: In areas of special flood hazard or future-conditions flood hazard, Chapter 5 requires flood-damage-prevention review before development activity begins. Because “development” includes structures, grading, excavation, impervious cover, and storage of equipment or materials, fence work in those areas may require floodplain review through the City’s land-disturbance or floodplain-management process.

• Stormwater Review: Chapter 22 applies to new development or redevelopment that meets the 5,000-square-foot impervious-surface threshold, the one-acre land-disturbance threshold, or applicable common-plan thresholds. Ordinary fence work does not become stormwater-regulated unless the project meets those published stormwater triggers.

• Stream Buffers: On property containing a stream protection area, land development activity is subject to a 75-foot undisturbed natural vegetative buffer and an additional 25-foot setback. Land development activity in the buffer and impervious cover in the setback are prohibited unless a variance is granted.

• Wetlands Protection: Regulated activity within the wetlands protection district requires written permission or a permit from the City. If proposed development is within 50 feet of the wetlands protection district boundary, the ordinance requires a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers determination before local permission can be granted.

• Historic Preservation: For a designated historic property or property in a designated historic district, a Certificate of Appropriateness is required before a material change in appearance. The historic-preservation definition of material change expressly includes the erection, alteration, restoration, or removal of walls, fences, steps, pavements, or other appurtenant features.

• Pool, Hot Tub, and Spa Barriers: A fence used as the required barrier for an outdoor swimming pool, private swimming pool, hot tub, or spa is reviewed under the City’s pool, hot-tub, and spa barrier provisions, not only as an ordinary yard fence.

FENCE PLACEMENT RULES

• Residential Zoning Districts: The setback requirements of the zoning ordinance do not prohibit a necessary retaining wall or fence unless the wall or fence causes a public or safety hazard. Residential fences and retaining walls must still follow the height, location, and visibility standards in Sec. 536 and Sec. 538.

• Front Yard Property-Line Distance: In residential zoning districts, a front yard fence must be at least 0.5 feet from the property line.

• Side and Rear Yards: The code does not specify a separate minimum property-line distance for side-yard or rear-yard residential fences in the Sec. 536 table. Side-yard and rear-yard fences remain subject to the City’s height, visibility, easement, right-of-way, and safety rules.

• Public Streets and Rights-of-Way: Fences along a public street have a separate height limit, and the Building Permit Application asks whether the work involves right-of-way encroachment. A fence must not encroach into a public right-of-way unless the applicable City process allows the encroachment.

• Clemsil Overlay District: In the Clemsil Overlay District, rear and side fences are optional. Fences along a public right-of-way are limited to 4 feet maximum, and ground level may not be altered to create additional fence height.

• Stream Buffers and Setbacks: On property with a stream protection area, land development activity is subject to the 75-foot stream buffer and the additional 25-foot setback. Fence work involving land development in those areas must be evaluated under the stream-buffer provisions.

• Floodplain and Wetlands Areas: Fence work that involves development, grading, excavation, structures, fill, or regulated activity in mapped flood hazard areas or wetlands protection areas may require floodplain, wetlands, or land-disturbance review before work begins.

• Grading and Drainage: Premises must be graded and maintained to prevent soil erosion and the accumulation of stagnant water, except in approved retention areas and reservoirs.

• Utility Safety: Georgia law requires notice to the Utilities Protection Center, commonly known as Georgia 811, before excavation where Georgia’s underground utility damage-prevention law applies. For fence projects that involve mechanized digging, including mechanized post-hole excavation, the locate request effective date must be not less than two (2) business days and not more than eight (8) business days after the request is received, and work under that locate request may not begin more than 30 calendar days after the effective date.

FENCE HEIGHT AND VISIBILITY RULES

• Front Yard: In residential zoning districts, a front yard fence may not exceed 4 feet. A front-yard retaining wall may not exceed 3.5 feet. The variance column for front-yard fence height is listed as N/A.

• Side and Rear Yards: In residential zoning districts, fences and retaining walls in side and rear yards may not exceed 8 feet. The maximum fence height with a variance is 10 feet.

• Along a Public Street: In residential zoning districts, a fence along a public street may not exceed 5 feet. A retaining wall along a public street may not exceed 2 feet. The maximum fence height with a variance is 6 feet.

• Clemsil Overlay District: In the Clemsil Overlay District, fences along a public right-of-way may not exceed 4 feet. If the ground level is lower than the adjoining street pavement, the fence may be higher only so that it is 4 feet above the pavement, and ground level may not be altered to provide additional fence height.

• Corner Visibility: On corner lots in all zoning districts, no wall, fence, foliage, or other obstruction to traffic line-of-sight vision may exceed 2.5 feet within the triangular area formed by the intersection of the right-of-way lines and two points measured 20 feet along the property line from that intersection.

• Sight-Obscuring Features: Within the corner-visibility triangle, no sight-obscuring wall, fence, or foliage may be higher than 30 inches above grade. For trees, no foliage may be lower than 8 feet.

• Height Measurement: Fence, hedge, and continuous-foliage heights are measured from the adjacent top of street curb, alley surface, or official established grade, whichever is higher. Along interior lot lines, height is measured from the average grade of the lot line of the parcel where the fence is located.

• Shielding Exception: The City Manager may approve fences or plantings higher than the zoning regulations as shielding between different uses or between like uses by agreement of affected parties, provided that the approval does not reduce corner visibility.

MATERIAL AND CONSTRUCTION LIMITS

• Front Yard Materials: In residential zoning districts, front yard fences must be made of brick, stone, stucco, split rail, wood, or wrought iron.

• Side and Rear Yard Materials: In residential zoning districts, side-yard and rear-yard fences may be vinyl-coated chain link.

• Clemsil Overlay Materials: In the Clemsil Overlay District, fences may be made of wood, brick, stone, wrought iron, or landscaped materials.

• Fence Orientation: Fence foundations and frames must be on the interior facing of the fence only.

• Buffer Fences: Fences within required buffer strips must be solid. Cyclone fencing with inserts as screening is prohibited. Painted or stained wood must be maintained, metal fencing must be painted or vinyl-coated, fence supports must face inward, and posts must be anchored in concrete when the fence is over 6 feet.

• Sloped Sites: Fences within required buffers may step down a slope, but supports must be vertical and plumb.

• Maintenance: Fences and walls must be structurally sound, in good repair, free from loose or rotting materials to the extent that they have become unsafe or an eyesore, and supported with braces and supports attached or fastened in accordance with common building practices.

• Pool, Hot Tub, and Spa Barriers: Outdoor swimming pools, private swimming pools, hot tubs, and spas containing water more than 24 inches deep must be completely surrounded by a safety fence at least 60 inches above grade, measured on the side facing away from the pool. Gates must comply with the City’s self-closing and self-latching standards. These are pool, hot-tub, and spa barrier rules, not general yard-fence height rules for non-pool fences.

• Prohibited Residential Materials: The code does not publish a separate residential prohibition on barbed wire, razor wire, or electric fencing for standard single-family fences.

PRIVATE RESTRICTIONS

Private restrictions operate independently from City fence rules. Subdivision covenants, HOA rules, deed restrictions, private easements, architectural-review covenants, conservation easements, shared driveway agreements, or private boundary agreements may be more restrictive than the City’s published fence standards.

The City’s issuance of a permit does not override private restrictions, and private restrictions are not treated as waived because a fence complies with zoning, building-permit, stormwater, floodplain, historic-preservation, or property-maintenance rules.

REVIEW AND ENFORCEMENT CONTEXT

Fence issues are typically reviewed during permit or approval review when required, and through complaint-based code enforcement. Examples include:

• Fence Permit Review: New fences, replacement fences, and fence repairs that include fence posts are reviewed through the City’s Building Permit process.

• Fence Repairs Without Posts: The City’s permit table lists fence repair not including fence posts as not requiring a Building Permit.

• Zoning Review: The City may review front-yard, side-yard, rear-yard, and public-street height limits; the 0.5-foot front-yard property-line distance; front-yard materials; fence orientation; buffer-fence standards; and corner-visibility rules.

• Historic Preservation Review: A fence on a designated historic property or within a designated historic district may require a Certificate of Appropriateness before the fence is erected, altered, restored, or removed.

• Floodplain, Stormwater, Stream-Buffer, Wetlands, and Land-Disturbance Review: Fence work may require additional review when it involves mapped flood hazard areas, wetlands protection areas, stream protection areas, non-minor land disturbance, stormwater thresholds, or work that is part of a larger common plan of development.

• Pool, Hot Tub, and Spa Barrier Review: A fence used as a barrier for a regulated pool, hot tub, or spa is reviewed under the pool, hot-tub, and spa barrier standards.

• Code Compliance: Deteriorated, unsafe, loose, rotting, or poorly maintained fences and walls may be reviewed under the City’s property-maintenance and code-compliance provisions.

• Drainage and Erosion: Fence work that affects grading, drainage, erosion, sediment movement, stormwater flow, or stagnant-water conditions may be reviewed under the City’s drainage, land-disturbance, stormwater, or erosion-control provisions.

• Utility Safety: Fence work involving mechanized digging is subject to Georgia 811 utility-notice requirements before excavation where Georgia’s underground utility damage-prevention law applies.

USING THIS INFORMATION

This page provides general orientation on how residential fence rules are structured and applied within City of Clarkston, based on publicly available source materials reviewed as of June 2026.

In addition to local fence rules, certain Georgia laws apply statewide. See Statewide Fence Laws in Georgia.

It is not legal advice and does not replace official ordinances, permits, surveys, or professional guidance. Rules and interpretations may change, and application may vary based on zoning district, site conditions, easements, rights-of-way, floodplain status, stormwater or drainage requirements, land-disturbance requirements, road or highway encroachment, historic district status, design-review status, rural or agricultural context, livestock context, pool-barrier use, overhead high-voltage line work, utility safety requirements, and private restrictions such as HOA covenants, deed restrictions, private agreements, or conservation easements. Before purchasing materials or beginning construction, confirm current requirements and any site-specific limitations with Planning and Development Department and any applicable private agreements. If this page conflicts with official ordinances, published guidance, or direction from City of Clarkston staff, the official sources control. For legal advice or legal interpretation, consult a licensed attorney.