Rockdale County, GA Accessory Structures: ADU Rules (2026)

Sec. 218-13(r) of the Rockdale County Code, part of the Unified Development Ordinance's standards of use and development, is the section that governs a caretaker or employee dwelling, the county's version of an accessory dwelling unit tied to a principal residence. Subsection (2) sets a hard 800-square-foot ceiling on the size of the structure, smaller than the general accessory building standards in Sec. 218-7, which allow up to 1,200 square feet or 50 percent of the principal dwelling's floor area on parcels between one and five acres.

Subsection (1) requires the use to maintain a residential appearance and produce no impacts in appearance, noise, light, and traffic that are detrimental to adjacent properties, giving the Department of Planning and Development discretion to deny or condition a permit where a caretaker unit would visibly read as a second household. Because Sec. 218-7 separately requires accessory structures to sit in the rear yard or behind the front building line, be finished to match the principal structure, and stay at least ten feet from a side or rear property line, an applicant for a caretaker dwelling in unincorporated Rockdale County has to satisfy both that general accessory-structure standard and the 800-square-foot cap and appearance test in Sec. 218-13(r) before the unit can be occupied.