Do you need a permit to build a fence in Peachtree City?
A building permit is required for any fence four feet in height or taller in Peachtree City. Below four feet, no permit is needed. Height limits then depend on where the fence sits: six feet in the side and rear setback, eight feet outside it.
When does a fence need a permit?
At four feet. A building permit is required for the construction or alteration of any fence four feet in height or taller. Under four feet, none is needed.
That single number decides more than it looks like it should. It is the reason a three foot picket around a front garden is a weekend job and a six foot privacy run is a paperwork job, and it is also the reason people are surprised when a replacement fence needs a permit that the original apparently never had.
How tall can a fence be?
It depends where on the lot it stands, and the answer is not one number.
Inside the required residential side and rear setback the cap is six feet. Decorative features on top may reach seven. Outside the setback the cap rises to eight feet. A tennis court enclosure may go to ten.
So the eight foot maximum people quote is real, but it applies to the part of the lot most homeowners are not fencing. Along the side and rear boundary of a typical lot, six feet is the working limit.
Why is the front of my lot treated differently?
Because of the streets. No fence taller than four feet may stand within 40 feet of the right of way of an arterial or collector street, and where a lot adjoins a greenbelt along a collector street that distance is 35 feet.
Corner lots feel this hardest. A property with two street frontages can find that most of its perimeter is inside one of those bands, which caps the fence at four feet in the places a homeowner most wants height, while the rear boundary allows six.
Check which streets touch your lot before choosing a height. It is a cheaper question to ask now than after the posts are set.
What are the rules on materials?
Exposed metal must be vinyl coated or painted a standard dark brown, dark green or black. Plain galvanised silver does not qualify.
Wire fencing, chain link included, may not be installed between the house and an adjoining street right of way. Between that rule and the colour rule, the familiar silver chain link across a front yard is not an option here, and a coated black run along a rear boundary is.
Which side of the fence faces my neighbour?
Theirs. Where a fence has structural supports on one side only, that side must face the interior of your property.
The finished face looks outward. It is worth saying to a contractor out loud, because it changes nothing about the price and everything about a conversation with the neighbour six months later.
What does the application ask for?
Four things. An application describing the fence material and its height. A site plan drawn on an official plat or survey showing where the fence will run. A photograph of the fence you intend to build.
The plat is the item that holds people up. Find it before you start: it is usually in the closing package from when you bought the house, and it is also what settles where an easement or a cart path sits relative to your boundary.
How much does the permit cost?
The city does not publish the fence permit fee on its fences page, so anyone quoting you a figure from a website is guessing. Ask Planning and Development directly, and ask at the same time whether your specific lot carries an easement or a path setback.
One call answers both, and both change what you can build.
What else should I check before building?
A fence built inside a utility or drainage easement can be damaged or removed when a crew needs to reach what is buried under it, and putting it back is the owner’s expense. Easements are marked on the same plat the application asks for.
If your lot backs onto a paved cart path there is a separate four foot setback from the edge of the pavement, measured from the path rather than your property line. That rule is independent of height and applies whether or not you need a permit.