Henry County, Georgia - Building & Plan Review Department

Henry County, Georgia

county

McDonough, GA

The Building & Plan Review Department, 140 Henry Parkway, McDonough, GA 30253, phone 770-288-6051, processes residential permit applications through the County's SAGESGov online portal. The Department publishes a combined "Residential New Home Permit Checklist" covering the Building & Plan Review and Planning & Zoning intake requirements together for a single-family building permit, related land disturbance permit, lot modification or division, addition, or accessory structure review; the checklist directs an applicant to select the project type in the SAGESGov record and complete only the sections listed for that record, and notes that where more than one process is needed - for example a lot division, then a land disturbance permit, then a building permit - each is submitted separately. The checklist states plainly that it "does not replace the Henry County Unified Land Development Code, approved zoning conditions, Georgia State Minimum Standard Codes, or any other applicable ordinance or regulation." This record could not confirm a specific published threshold or checklist track for an ordinary roof-replacement or repair project, which does not appear as a named project type on the current combined checklist; a roofer should confirm the correct application record and any permit requirement directly with the Department before bidding a reroof.

STATE-SET, LOCALLY ENFORCED, AND LOCALLY LIMITED TO THE UNINCORPORATED COUNTY. Georgia has no local code adoption to look up in the ordinary sense: the International Residential Code is one of the codes Georgia designates as a mandatory state minimum standard code, adopted by the Department of Community Affairs, 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. Henry County does enforce it, through the Unified Land Development Code (ULDC), "Full Revision" effective September 1, 2026. Section 1.2.2.F, Building and Construction Codes, provides that "Each building and construction code listed in subsections 1.2.2.E.1. through 15 as approved by the State of Georgia, including any attachments, future editions and amendments, are hereby adopted by reference as if set forth in its entirety," and lists fifteen codes, the International Residential Code for One- and Two-Family Dwellings among them. That is a floating adoption: Henry County tracks whatever edition the Department of Community Affairs currently designates, which the Department's own "Current State Minimum Codes for Construction" page lists, as of this reading, as the Residential Code, 2024 Edition, with Georgia Amendments 2026. TWO LOCAL POINTS MATTER. FIRST, SCOPE: Section 1.1.3.A of the ULDC provides that "The regulations, standards, criteria, and procedures set forth in this ULDC shall govern the design, development, and use of all land within the unincorporated areas of Henry County." The Building & Plan Review Department's authority, including its Section 1.2.2.F adoption of the technical codes, therefore reaches unincorporated Henry County. This record does not establish whether the incorporated cities within Henry County - McDonough, Stockbridge, Hampton and Locust Grove - operate their own building departments or rely on some other arrangement; a roofer working inside any of those city limits should confirm which authority issues the permit before relying on anything in this record. SECOND, APPENDIX U IS NOT ADOPTED: the Department of Community Affairs' own "Mandatory and Permissive State Codes" page lists the "Disaster Resilient Building Code IRC Appendix" - Appendix U - among the permissive codes, which "are only applicable if a local government chooses to adopt and enforce" them, and Henry County's list of fifteen adopted codes in Section 1.2.2.F does not include it, so its enhanced roof-deck sealing and shingle fastening provisions do not apply in unincorporated Henry County. The building-and-construction-codes article of the ULDC was read in full - all 469 pages of the "Full Revision (09-01-2026)" - and it contains no amendment to the Residential Code's Chapter 9, Roof Assemblies: measured rather than skimmed, at zero occurrences of R902, R905, R907, R908 or the phrase "Chapter 9" anywhere in the document.

Required — STATE-GOVERNED, NOT LOCALLY SET, and it applies in unincorporated Henry County exactly as it applies everywhere else in Georgia. The International Residential Code is one of the codes Georgia designates as a mandatory state minimum standard code, so under O.C.G.A. 8-2-25(a) it binds construction here whether or not the local government chooses to enforce it locally. Henry County does enforce it, through Section 1.2.2.F of the Unified Land Development Code (ULDC), which adopts "as approved by the State of Georgia" fifteen named codes, the International Residential Code among them, by a floating reference that tracks the edition Georgia currently designates - as of this reading the 2024 International Residential Code with the Georgia Amendments 2026. The Department of Community Affairs amendment packet for the 2024 Residential Code was opened in full for this entry, all 43 pages of it, and measured rather than skimmed, at zero occurrences of any R9-hundred section number and zero of the phrase "Chapter 9". So the Chapter 9 drip-edge provision at Section R905.2.8.5 stands as written for Georgia. The County's own building instrument was likewise opened in full for this entry: the "Full Revision (09-01-2026)" of the ULDC, all 469 pages of it, searched on anchored terms with zero hits for "drip", zero for any 905-series section number, and zero for the words "ice barrier" or "sheathing". Section 1.2.2 is where the County writes its technical-code amendments, and its only content bearing on the Residential Code is the floating adoption clause itself in subsection F; there is no local table of climatic or geographic criteria and no local amendment to Chapter 9 anywhere in the document. APPENDIX U IS NOT ADOPTED. The Department of Community Affairs classifies Appendix U, Disaster Resilient Construction, as a permissive code, reaching a Georgia jurisdiction only by that jurisdiction's own act of adoption, and it is not among the fifteen codes Section 1.2.2.F names. Section AU101.3.1 of that appendix itself states that its provisions "are not mandatory unless specifically referenced in an adopting ordinance", so it is a new-development and substantial-improvement appendix even where a jurisdiction does adopt it, not a rule about how an ordinary reroof is installed. The operative ICC text of R905.2.8.5, which sets the extent, lap and fastening specifics, sits behind the ICC paywall; this record does not restate it and does not rely on any third-party republication of it. What is recorded is the sourced fact that the requirement is in force in unincorporated Henry County unamended. This record does not establish whether the same is true inside the incorporated cities of McDonough, Stockbridge, Hampton or Locust Grove, which the County's building instrument does not reach. O.C.G.A. 8-2-25(a) says the same thing from the state side: the mandatory codes bind the construction whether or not the local government enforces them. About drip edge

Not required — No impact-resistant or hail-rated roof covering is required in unincorporated Henry County. Neither the Georgia State Amendments packet to the 2024 International Residential Code nor the Unified Land Development Code, "Full Revision (09-01-2026)", Henry County's own building-code instrument, contains any UL 2218, Class 4, Class IV or FM 4473 impact requirement. Both were opened and searched in full for this entry: the 43-page state amendment packet returns zero occurrences of "Class 4", "UL 2218" and "impact", and the 469-page county instrument returns the same zero count. The state packet does not amend the Residential Code's roofing chapter at all, and the county instrument's only bearing on the Residential Code is its floating adoption clause, Section 1.2.2.F, which carries no impact entry of any kind. Henry County has not adopted Appendix U Disaster Resilient Construction, whose own roofing content is about fastening and water barriers rather than impact resistance 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.

NO LOCAL FIGURE IS PUBLISHED. Georgia's Table R301.2(1) of climatic and geographic design criteria leaves its wind-speed cell to be filled in by the adopting jurisdiction, and unincorporated Henry County has not published a completed version of that table anywhere this record could locate: the Unified Land Development Code, "Full Revision (09-01-2026)", read in full across all 469 pages, contains zero occurrences of "wind speed", "ground snow", "climatic" or "geographic criteria", and no search turned up a separate County-published design-criteria table of the kind some neighboring Georgia counties maintain. The Georgia State Amendments to the 2024 International Residential Code carry only one wind figure in the mandatory chapters and it is not a design value: a new exception to the foundation-anchorage section, Section R403.1.6, that applies "Where the basic wind speed in accordance with Figure R301.2(4)A does not exceed 115 miles per hour (51 m/s), the seismic design category is A or B and Method GB in accordance with Section R602.10 is used for a braced wall line on the interior of the dwelling" - a threshold for when a lighter anchorage method may be used, not a stated design wind speed for Henry County. Appendix U Disaster Resilient Construction, whose Chapter AU4 offers an adopting jurisdiction a choice of minimum wind speeds, is not adopted in Henry County. Confirm the design wind speed and exposure category with the Building & Plan Review Division on 770-288-6051 before designing to a number.

Set by the state code, and unincorporated Henry County has written no local rule of its own about the deck beneath a roof covering. The Georgia amendment packet to the 2024 International Residential Code makes no change to the Code's roofing chapter - opened in full for this entry, all 43 pages, with zero occurrences of any R9-hundred section number, zero of "sheathing" and zero of "Chapter 9" - so the base International Residential Code provisions on roof deck sheathing apply as published. The Unified Land Development Code, "Full Revision (09-01-2026)", Henry County's own building-code instrument, was read in full across all 469 pages and writes no deck or sheathing specification of its own: zero occurrences of "sheathing" anywhere in the document. Appendix U Disaster Resilient Construction, which carries enhanced deck-sealing and shingle-fastening provisions in jurisdictions that adopt it, is not adopted in Henry County - Section 1.2.2.F lists fifteen adopted codes and Appendix U is not one of them - so those provisions do not apply here. This record does not establish whether the incorporated cities within Henry County write a deck-sheathing rule of their own; they are not reached by the county instrument read for this entry.

8% in Henry County. The Georgia Department of Revenue's rate chart in force for July 1 through September 30, 2026 lists jurisdiction code 075 "Henry" at 8%, combining the 4% Georgia state rate with local components the chart's own legend marks LOST, Educational SPLOST, SPLOST and TSPLOST 2. The Department of Revenue has already published the chart taking effect October 1, 2026 through December 31, 2026, and the Henry row is unchanged at 8% in it, so the figure holds through that reissue. Henry does not appear among the counties this chart splits by city, so the same 8% applies in McDonough, Stockbridge, Hampton and Locust Grove as in the unincorporated county.