Clayton County, GA Building Safety: Childcare Center Rules (2026)

Sec. 11 separates day care regulation by setting: family day care homes and group day care homes fall under DCF-01 and DCF-02, while a day care center located in a commercial building or a commercial zoning district falls under DCF-03. DCF-03 requires that all regulated facilities shall comply with the State regulation and acquire applicable State licenses for operation, which ties the county's zoning approval to Georgia's state child care licensing process rather than creating a separate county license track. The space standards are calculated per child at the facility's maximum permissible enrollment, not per classroom or per square foot of building.

A center licensed for 40 children, for example, needs a minimum of 1,400 square feet of indoor play area and 8,000 square feet of outdoor play area to satisfy the 35-square-foot and 200-square-foot per-child minimums. Because DCF-03 applies specifically to commercial buildings and commercial zoning districts, these numbers are the same regardless of which commercial district the center sits in. The commercial building itself also has to satisfy the applicable building and fire code requirements that apply to any use in that zoning classification, and the Zoning Administrator, per Article 14, retains authority to inspect and enforce these standards alongside state licensing inspectors.