City of Brookhaven, Georgia - Community Development Department, Building Division

City of Brookhaven, Georgia

city

Brookhaven, GA

Required

Required

Everything runs through the City's Cityworks Project Portal - applications, plans, payments, inspection requests and the release of the permit and approved drawings. Before applying, a contractor must be registered: the Contractor Registration form is emailed to [email protected] with copies of licences, notarised, and the City verifies the licence information before approving the account. The email address on the form becomes the Project Portal login. A contractor may name an Authorized Permit Agent on the City's own form, but the contractor to whom the permit is issued stays responsible for the project. Plans go in through the portal and are reviewed by every applicable department; where the plans do not meet current codes or more information is needed, a comment letter and redlined plans are posted to the portal and the applicant is emailed, and the revised plans plus the initialled comment letter are uploaded back. Approved plans are stamped electronically, fees are then paid by card in the portal or by check or card in person at City Hall, and the permit and stamped plans are released to the contractor of record or their authorised agent. The City asks for ten business days before chasing a review. A Residential Plan Review Data Sheet is part of the submittal and asks for roof rafter size, span, spacing and type, the method used to establish a continuous tie or load path, and attic ventilation type and total vent area. Watch two Brookhaven-specific approvals that catch outside work: DeKalb County easement approval is required on most residential building submittals, and DeKalb County Watershed Management review follows if a sewer or water line easement is found. Permitting is at 2665 Buford Highway, the PEP Building, Brookhaven, GA 30324, Monday to Friday; the general number is 404-637-0500. Direct code questions to the Building Official and plan review questions to the Building Plan Reviewer.

STATE-SET, LOCALLY ENFORCED, WITH REAL LOCAL SUPPLEMENTS. Georgia has no local code adoption to look up. The International Residential Code, 2024 Edition, with Georgia Amendments 2026 is a mandatory state minimum standard code adopted by the Department of Community Affairs and effective January 1, 2026, and under O.C.G.A. 8-2-25(a) it binds any structure built in Georgia whether or not the local government chooses to enforce it locally. Compliance is therefore statewide and automatic; what is local is enforcement. Brookhaven does enforce it, and its Code section 7-23(a) is an unusually explicit floating adoption: "As future new editions or amendments of the codes listed in this article are adopted by the board of community affairs of the state department of community affairs, they shall become a part of or replacement for the adopted codes, rules and regulations or standards and shall become enforceable as prescribed without separate adoption by the governing authority", and all new construction, installations, repairs or alterations must conform to the current edition of nine listed codes with the current state amendments. So the City moved to the 2024 editions on January 1, 2026 without passing an ordinance of its own. The City's own building page confirms the posture: asked what construction codes it enforces, Brookhaven answers that it "enforces State-mandated construction and fire codes, City of Brookhaven Codes, and some Federal requirements, such as accessibility." APPENDIX U IS NOT ADOPTED, and Brookhaven answers the appendix question with a general rule rather than a list. Section 7-23(c) provides: "The appendices included in any code adopted pursuant to this chapter are not intended for enforcement unless specifically referenced in this chapter or specifically included in this Code." Chapter 7 was read in full and references no appendix to the Residential Code, so the optional Appendix U "Disaster Resilient Construction" and its enhanced roof-deck sealing and shingle fastening do not apply here. What IS local is section 7-24, which deletes the Residential Code's Chapter 1, fills in its Table 301.2(1), and then adds a numbered list of "Local ordinance requirements supplemental to the state-adopted International Residential Code" - a list that reaches roofing directly and is quoted in the roofing fields of this record. The Code of Ordinances is codified through Ordinance No. 2026-01-03, enacted January 27, 2026.

Required — Brookhaven requires it by its own ordinance, which is rare in Georgia. Code section 7-24 sets out "Local ordinance requirements supplemental to the state-adopted International Residential Code", and one of them reads in full: "All roofing shingles shall be installed and maintained during the entire construction per manufacturer's recommendations. Roofing shall be installed and sloped according to the manufacturer specifications using flashing and waterproof caulking to prevent leakage and moisture accumulation. Drip edges shall be installed at all roofing edges." The requirement is unqualified - all roofing edges, with no exception for slope, covering type or eave-versus-rake - and it sits alongside three other local rules a roofer will meet on the same job: roof framing "shall be tied securely to wall framing, using hurricane type connections"; flashing and caulking must be installed at all exterior surfaces, roofs or appurtenances connected to another surface and must extend to abutting structures; and "Crickets shall be installed behind all chimneys and shall extend the full width of the chimney chase." The City also states in the same list that residential gutters must be continuously sloped, free of depressions or swags that collect standing water, and discharged to a designed or natural drainage system that does not adversely affect adjacent property. These are Brookhaven requirements in addition to whatever the state-adopted Residential Code says, not a restatement of it. About drip edge

Required — BROOKHAVEN HAS A ROOFING INSPECTION STAGE, WHICH ALMOST NO GEORGIA JURISDICTION IN THIS CORPUS DOES. Code section 7-170's list of required inspections includes, as its own lettered item: "Roof felt and sheathing inspection. To be performed after roof felt is installed and prior to covering exterior wall sheathing with felt paper, house wrap, or siding." It follows immediately after a "Pre-cladding/sheathing inspection. To be made after the roof and the wall bracing, are installed and prior to placement of exterior cladding. Rough inspections on trades need not be complete for pre-cladding inspection." So the sequence is deck and bracing, then felt, then inspection, then the covering. The other stages on the list are foundation and slab, a registered land surveyor's foundation survey for new single-family residences, waterproofing before backfill, framing rough after wiring, piping, chimneys, ducts and vents are concealed and fire blocking is in, and the later trade and final stages. Do not cover the felt before this inspection is called. Inspections are requested through the City's Cityworks Project Portal; confirm the inspection sequence attached to your own permit in the portal, since the roof felt stage will only appear on a permit whose scope reaches it.

Not required — No impact-resistant or hail-rated roof covering is required in Brookhaven. Neither the Georgia State Amendments packet to the 2024 International Residential Code nor Chapter 7 of the Brookhaven Code of Ordinances contains any UL 2218, Class 4, Class IV or FM 4473 impact requirement. The Georgia packet does not amend the Code's roofing chapter at all, and Brookhaven's Chapter 7, read in full, does write local roofing requirements - shingle installation to manufacturer's recommendations, slope, flashing, caulking, drip edges, hurricane type roof-to-wall connections, gutters and chimney crickets - none of which is an impact rating. Brookhaven has not adopted Appendix U Disaster Resilient Construction, whose roofing content is about fastening and water barriers rather than impact in any event. An insurer may still offer a premium credit for an impact-rated shingle in the Atlanta hail belt, but that is an insurance matter and not a code requirement here.

A REROOF REQUIRES A PERMIT IN BROOKHAVEN, AND THE REASON IS THE CITY'S OWN DEFINITION OF "ORDINARY REPAIRS". Code section 7-118(a) provides that "A permit shall be obtained before beginning construction, erection, alteration or repair to a building or structure, mechanical system, gas system, plumbing system, electrical system, and energy conservation system, other than ordinary repairs", and 7-118(b) exempts ordinary repairs to a single-family residential building or structure. Everything therefore turns on what an ordinary repair is, and section 7-1 defines it: "Ordinary repairs mean nonstructural repairs to a building or structure or repairs to a mechanical system, gas system, plumbing system, electrical system, and energy conservation system for which the codes specify no minimum requirements or standards or do not address the repair. The term 'ordinary repairs' does not include additions, alterations, relocations, or replacements to buildings or structures, water supplies, sewers, drains, drain leaders, gas, soil waste, vent or other similar piping, electrical systems or wiring, mechanical systems, or other work for which a permit is required by the Code or the building official." A roof replacement is a replacement, and the construction codes plainly do address roof coverings, so it falls outside the exemption on two independent limbs of that definition. The section 7-118(d) list of work exempt from permit was read in full - it covers retaining walls under four feet, water tanks, finish work such as painting and tiling, stage sets, shallow above-ground pools, playground equipment, window awnings, low movable partitions and detached accessory structures of 100 square feet or less, plus electrical, gas, mechanical and plumbing items - and roofing appears nowhere in it. PRACTICAL EFFECT: price the permit into every Brookhaven reroof. Starting first is expensive: section 7-118(c) adds "a penalty of 100 percent of the usual permit fee in addition to the required permit fee" for anyone commencing work before the permit issues. Permits for genuinely emergency work must be obtained within 24 hours after the work is commenced.

READ THE BASIS BEFORE USING THE NUMBER. Brookhaven fills in the Residential Code's climatic and geographic criteria table for itself, which most Georgia jurisdictions do not, but it states its wind figure in an older averaging basis. Code section 7-24 provides that "Table 301.2(1) in chapter 3 shall be completed by adding the following information to the blank spaces" and gives, as its second item, "Wind speed (fastest mile) - 90." Fastest-mile wind speed is a different measurement basis from the three-second gust that modern editions of the Residential Code and ASCE 7 use, and different again from the ultimate design wind speed those documents tabulate, so 90 miles per hour fastest mile is NOT interchangeable with 90 miles per hour three-second gust and must not be dropped into a fastening or uplift calculation that expects one of the newer bases. This record states the City's own figure and its stated basis and does not convert it. The rest of that table entry gives a ground snow load of 8 pounds per square foot, seismic design category B, moderate weathering, a frost line depth of 12 inches minimum, very heavy termite damage, moderate to severe decay damage, a winter design temperature of 22 degrees Fahrenheit, and flood hazard as defined in Chapter 14 of the City Code. It carries NO ice-barrier entry. Separately, and independent of any wind speed, section 7-24 requires as a local supplemental rule that "Roof framing shall be tied securely to wall framing, using hurricane type connections", and the City's own residential plan review data sheet asks the applicant to state the "Method Used to Establish Continuous Tie or Load Path". Confirm the design wind speed and exposure category with the Building Official before designing to a number.

Set by the state code, not by Brookhaven. The residential code in force is the 2024 International Residential Code with the Georgia Amendments 2026, and the Georgia amendment packet makes no change to the Code's roofing chapter, so the base International Residential Code reroofing and roof-recover provisions apply as published and Georgia adds no layer cap of its own. On the local side, Chapter 7 of the Brookhaven Code of Ordinances, Buildings and Construction, was read in full - all three articles, all six divisions of Article III, and every section from 7-1 to 7-197 - and although the City does write local roofing requirements, none of them is about how many layers of covering may remain. Section 7-24's supplemental residential requirements reach shingle installation, slope, flashing, caulking, drip edges, roof-to-wall connections, gutters, chimney crickets and stucco weep screeds, and say nothing about recovering over an existing roof. So no Brookhaven ordinance limits the number of roof-covering layers, and a roofer working here answers the layer question out of the base Code. Appendix U Disaster Resilient Construction is not adopted here, so nothing in that appendix bears on the question either.

Set by the state code so far as the roof deck itself is concerned, but Brookhaven inspects the deck and its felt as a stage of its own, and it has one local sheathing rule that is about WALLS and must not be carried across to a roof. The Georgia amendment packet to the 2024 International Residential Code makes no change to the Code's roofing chapter, so the base International Residential Code provisions on the deck beneath a roof covering apply as published. Chapter 7 of the Brookhaven Code, read in full, prescribes no roof-deck material or thickness. Its one sheathing specification is section 7-24's supplemental requirement that "Seven-sixteenth inch structural wood sheathing or other approved material shall be installed as underlayment on all residential exterior walls where vinyl siding is to be installed", which by its own words is an exterior wall rule tied to vinyl siding and not a roof-deck rule. What the deck does attract here is inspection. Section 7-170's required inspection list contains two consecutive stages that reach it: a "Pre-cladding/sheathing inspection. To be made after the roof and the wall bracing, are installed and prior to placement of exterior cladding", and a "Roof felt and sheathing inspection. To be performed after roof felt is installed and prior to covering exterior wall sheathing with felt paper, house wrap, or siding." So on a permitted Brookhaven job the felt goes on and then gets looked at. Appendix U Disaster Resilient Construction, which carries the enhanced deck-sealing and shingle-fastening provisions, is not adopted here, so those do not apply.

8% in Brookhaven. The Georgia Department of Revenue's rate chart in force for July 1 through September 30, 2026 lists jurisdiction code 044 "Dekalb (Not Atlanta)" at 8%, combining the 4% Georgia state rate with the local components the chart marks MARTA, Educational, HOST or EHOST and SPLOST. Brookhaven lies wholly within DeKalb County and is not part of the City of Atlanta, so 8% is its figure. DEKALB IS ONE OF THE THREE GEORGIA COUNTIES THAT SPLIT BY CITY, so do not carry this number across the county in your head: the same chart gives code 044A "Dekalb (Atlanta)" at 8.9% for the part of DeKalb inside Atlanta's city limits. The Department of Revenue has already published the chart taking effect on October 1, 2026 and the DeKalb rows are unchanged in it, so 8% holds through that reissue. For the roofer, Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. r. 560-12-2-.26(1) makes anyone who contracts to furnish materials and perform services improving real property "the consumer of all tangible personal property used or consumed in performing such contract" and who "shall pay the tax thereon at the time of purchase, use, storage or consumption in this State, whichever occurs first" - so the tax on the shingles is the contractor's, paid at the supplier, and not a line the homeowner is charged as a resale item. The same rule requires every contractor improving real property in Georgia to file for a Certificate of Registration on Form CRF-002 before its first construction activity in the state, which is a tax registration and not a contractor credential.