Bartow County, GA Accessory Structures: Tiny Homes (2026)

Bartow County Zoning Ordinance Sec. 5, titled Residential living only permitted in permanent structures, states that no lot may be used for temporary or permanent residential living quarters unless a permanent dwelling unit has been lawfully erected on the lot under the ordinance and applicable building and safety codes. The section spells out how the county identifies an illegal living arrangement: spending significant time at the location on more than one day, repeated eating or sleeping there, or activating electrical, water or septic utilities to serve a structure not approved for everyday living.

The ordinance then lists the specific structures it will not let anyone occupy, permanently or temporarily, on a residential lot: tents, boats, RV campers, shipping containers, tiny houses, and storage buildings. The single carve-out in the section is for tents, which may be occupied up to three days in any two-month period if pitched in the rear yard of an existing permanent dwelling. Tiny houses get no such exception. Occupying a tiny house also risks separate consequences under the ordinance's recreational vehicle occupancy rules in Sec.

6 if the structure is towable, and under the vehicle/trailer storage ban in Sec. 9 if the county treats it as a trailer, since both sections independently restrict what can be lived in or stored on a residential lot.