City of Johns Creek, Georgia - Community Development Department, Building Division

City of Johns Creek, Georgia

city

Johns Creek, GA

Not required

Required

Everything goes through the City's Customer Self-Service portal - there are no paper application forms for building or trade permits, and plans and documents are uploaded to the application as PDF attachments. A contractor must register its credentials in the portal under Contractor Registration before it can apply, and the registration runs until the underlying licences expire. Permits are issued to the contractor; a contractor may name an Authorized Permit Agent to apply on its licence, with a notarised affidavit, but the contractor stays responsible for the work. A homeowner may pull the permit as a Homeowner-Contractor, which requires an affidavit notarised in person at the permit counter at City Hall and makes the homeowner personally responsible for supervision, inspections and code compliance. Fees are invoiced by email after the application is submitted and are based on the project valuation under the adopted fee schedule; for permits needing plan review all fees must be paid before the plans are routed. Timing to watch: an application not issued within 180 days is deemed abandoned under Section 105-52(a)(5), and an issued permit becomes invalid if work does not start or ceases for 180 days, with extensions available in writing from the building official for good cause. Inspections are requested in the portal by 4:00 p.m. for the next business day, the contractor or job superintendent should be on site, the permit must be posted and the approved plans available, and a failed or not-ready inspection draws a re-inspection fee that must be paid before the next inspection can be scheduled. Contact is the Building Division at 678-512-3250 or [email protected], at 11360 Lakefield Drive, Johns Creek, GA 30097.

STATE-SET, LOCALLY ENFORCED. 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. Johns Creek does enforce it, and its own Code of Ordinances Section 105-20(a) declares the intention of the council to enforce "the latest edition of the following Georgia State Minimum Standard Codes, as adopted and amended by the state department of community affairs", listing the International Residential Code among eight. That is a floating adoption, so the City moved to the 2024 editions on January 1, 2026 without passing an ordinance of its own; the adopting section itself dates from Ordinance 2010-09-17, adopted September 27, 2010. The City's own Building Codes page lists the suite it is enforcing and confirms the one off-cycle member, the 2015 International Energy Conservation Code with Georgia supplements and amendments. Only two permissive codes are adopted, the 2018 International Existing Building Code and the 2018 International Property Maintenance Code. APPENDIX U IS NOT ADOPTED. Section 105-20(b) adopts exactly one appendix - "International Residential Code, Appendix G" - and the Building Codes page's permissive list carries no Disaster Resilient appendix, so the optional Appendix U "Disaster Resilient Construction" and its enhanced roof-deck sealing and shingle fastening rules do not apply in Johns Creek. The Code of Ordinances is codified through Ordinance No. 2025-06-18, adopted June 9, 2025.

Required — STATE-GOVERNED, NOT LOCALLY SET, and it applies in Johns Creek 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, so under O.C.G.A. 8-2-25(a) it binds construction here whether or not the City elects to enforce it locally. The City Code says the same from the local side: section 105-20(a) declares the intention of the council to enforce "the latest edition of the following Georgia State Minimum Standard Codes, as adopted and amended by the state department of community affairs" and names the International Residential Code among them, so the adoption floats with the state list and the operative residential standard here is the 2024 edition with Georgia Amendments 2026. The Georgia Department of Community Affairs amendment packet for the 2024 Residential Code carries no amendment to Chapter 9, Roof Assemblies; the packet's full text is archived in this project and was 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 City's own building instrument was re-opened in full for this entry rather than taken from an earlier report: Chapter 105, Buildings and Building Regulations, of the Code of Ordinances - all three articles and all of its sections from 105-19 through 105-131, some 65,000 characters - searched on anchored terms with zero hits for "drip", zero for "R905", zero for "Chapter 9" and zero for "shingle". The five occurrences of "roof" in the whole chapter are four identical framing and rough-in inspection descriptions and one irrigation rain-sensor rule. Chapter 105 is the only buildings and building regulations chapter in the Code; chapters 106 through 108 are reserved. The City writes no amendment to the Residential Code anywhere in it. APPENDIX U IS NOT ADOPTED, and the City's code answers that by enumeration rather than by silence. Section 105-20(b) adopts exactly one Residential Code appendix, "International Residential Code, Appendix G", and the City's own Building Codes page lists no Disaster Resilient appendix among the permissive codes it takes. The Department of Community Affairs adopts Appendix U, "Disaster Resilient Construction", as an optional permissive code that a local government must adopt for itself, and the appendix limits its own reach at AU101.3.1 to new development and to substantial improvements to existing development. Johns Creek has not adopted it. 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 Johns Creek unamended. One practical warning for a roofer: the City's permit checklist puts an ordinary roof replacement with no structural modification, and no more than 32 square feet of decking replaced, in the NO column of "Do I Need A Permit?", so most Johns Creek reroofs are never inspected by the City. The exemption removes the inspection, not the requirement - O.C.G.A. 8-2-25(a) makes the mandatory codes bind the work whether or not the local government enforces them, and Code section 105-52(a)(3) says the same of its own minor-repair exemption, which applies only "provided that such repairs shall not violate any of the provisions of the construction codes." About drip edge

Not required — No mid-roof, dry-in or in-progress roofing inspection is required, and on an ordinary reroof there is no City inspection at all, because a roof replacement with no structural work and no more than 32 square feet of new decking needs no permit in Johns Creek. Where a permit is required, the inspections are the ones the Code sets: Section 105-52(h)(6)a lists the required building inspections in full and there are five - foundation and foundation wall, slab, frame, moisture barrier, and final. None of them is a roofing stage. The same subsection lets the building official call for "such other inspections as necessary", and the City schedules from the inspection list attached to each permit in its Customer Self-Service portal rather than from a published list, so confirm the inspection sequence on the permit itself before covering work up.

Not required — No impact-resistant or hail-rated roof covering is required in Johns Creek. Neither the Georgia State Amendments packet to the 2024 International Residential Code nor Chapter 105 of the Johns Creek 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 the City's own building chapter, read in full, carries no roofing provision of any kind. Johns Creek has also not adopted the optional 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.

CITY-SPECIFIC, and the controlling fact for a Johns Creek reroof. The City publishes a "Do I Need A Permit?" checklist as a web table and as a downloadable PDF footer-dated 1.09.2026. The PDF, under its Exterior Alterations heading, puts "Roof replacement – no structural modification (except up to 32 SF decking)" in the NO column and "New doors, windows, roofs, dormers, or siding requiring structural alterations" in the YES column; the web table says the same in slightly different words, "Roof replacement – no structural work (up to 32 square feet decking)". The checklist's own columns are headed YES and NO to the question "Do I Need A Permit?", so this is a permit-scope rule and not a fee bracket or an inspection stage. The City's Building Permit Submittal Requirements checklist states the trigger from the other side, giving as an example of work needing an Alterations - Exterior permit "re-siding or re-roofing that requires replacing more than 32 SF of sheathing/decking". PRACTICAL EFFECT: a like-for-like asphalt-shingle reroof in Johns Creek needs no building permit, whatever it costs, as long as no structural work is involved and no more than 32 square feet of decking is replaced. Cross that line - truss or rafter repair, framing changes, or more than 32 square feet of new decking - and an Alterations - Exterior permit is required, with elevations, structural plans, truss layouts and roof plans among the documents the City may ask for. Separately, the codified Code of Ordinances Section 105-52(a)(3) provides that "Ordinary minor repairs, with a value of less than $2,500.00, may be made with the approval of the building official without a permit, provided that such repairs shall not violate any of the provisions of the construction codes", and the checklist repeats that rule under its own Repairs heading. That $2,500 allowance is a separate rule from the roof-replacement line and it is not automatic - it turns on the building official's permission. Neither exemption relaxes the construction code itself: the work must still be built to the adopted code even where no permit is pulled.

Johns Creek publishes no wind design criteria of its own, and neither does Georgia for one- and two-family dwellings. Chapter 105 of the Johns Creek Code of Ordinances was read in full and states no design wind speed, no exposure category and no wind-borne debris region, and the City publishes no filled-in copy of the Code's climatic and geographic criteria table. 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 3 to Section R403.1.6 on foundation anchorage 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 a particular braced wall method is used. Every other wind speed in the Georgia packet sits inside Appendix U Disaster Resilient Construction, whose Chapter AU4 offers a jurisdiction four options - minimum wind speeds of 100, 110, 120 or 130 miles per hour - and Johns Creek has not adopted that appendix, so none of those options applies. The governing figure is therefore the base Code's own wind map value read for the site. Ask the Building Division on 678-512-3250 for the wind speed and exposure category before designing fastening or uplift to a number.

Set by the state code, not by Johns Creek. The residential code in force is the 2024 International Residential Code with the Georgia Amendments 2026, and the Georgia amendment packet touches no part of the Code's roofing chapter - it amends Chapters 1 through 6, 8, 16, 19, 24 and 44, and Chapter 9, Roof Assemblies, is not among them - so the base International Residential Code reroofing and roof-recover provisions apply as published, with no Georgia layer cap of its own. On the local side, Chapter 105 of the Johns Creek Code of Ordinances, Buildings and Building Regulations, was read in full across all three of its articles and every one of its sections, and it contains no roofing provision at all: its only local technical amendment is to the plumbing code. So no Johns Creek ordinance limits how many layers of roof covering may remain, and a roofer working here answers the layer question out of the base Code. Johns Creek has not adopted Appendix U Disaster Resilient Construction, which the Department of Community Affairs adopts as optional, so nothing in that appendix bears on the question either.

Set by the state code, not by Johns Creek. 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. The packet does reach the roof-ceiling chapter, but only to add a new Section R807.1.1 requiring attics that contain appliances or mechanical equipment needing service to be reachable by pull-down stairs or other permanent steps, which is not a sheathing rule. Chapter 105 of the Johns Creek Code of Ordinances was read in full and writes no roof-deck or sheathing provision. What the deck does change in Johns Creek is the permit position: the City's permit checklist exempts a roof replacement only where there is no structural modification and no more than 32 square feet of decking is replaced, and its submittal checklist treats re-roofing that replaces more than 32 square feet of sheathing or decking as an Alterations - Exterior permit. Open up more deck than that and the job needs a permit, plans and inspections. Johns Creek has not adopted Appendix U Disaster Resilient Construction, which the Department of Community Affairs adopts as optional and which carries the enhanced deck-sealing and shingle-fastening provisions, so those do not apply here.

7.75% in Johns Creek. The Georgia Department of Revenue's rate chart in force for July 1 through September 30, 2026 lists jurisdiction code 060 "Fulton*" at 7.75%, where the asterisk is the chart's own footnote for "Fulton County outside of Atlanta, Hapeville, College Park, and East Point". Johns Creek lies wholly within Fulton County and is none of those four cities, so 7.75% is its figure. That combines the 4% Georgia state rate with the local components the chart marks MARTA, LOST, Educational and Fulton TSPLOST. FULTON COUNTY IS SPLIT BY CITY, NOT BY COUNTY, so do not carry this number across the county line in your head: the same chart gives 8.9% inside the City of Atlanta and 8.75% in Hapeville, College Park and East Point. The Department of Revenue has already published the chart taking effect on October 1, 2026 and the Fulton rows are unchanged in it, so 7.75% 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.