Troup County, GA Landscaping Rules: Rainwater Harvesting (2026)

Rainwater harvesting doesn't get its own article in Troup County's code the way signs or manufactured housing do. The Section 6.1 Table of Permitted and Prohibited Uses lists "Wind Turbines, Rainwater Collection Systems" together as a single accessory use, marked permitted as an accessory use in the Agricultural, Agricultural-Residential, Suburban Residential, Lakeside Residential, Limited Commercial, Urban Village, Light Industrial, Heavy Industrial, and Manufactured Home Park districts, meaning a homeowner or business in nearly every district in the unincorporated county can install a rainwater collection system without a special use permit, so long as it stays accessory to the principal use on the lot.

The table flags the entry as one that carries "additional regulations in Article VII Supplemental," but Article VII's numbered subsection for wind turbines, Section 7.3(14), only sets a height and setback standard for the turbine itself, a 40-foot maximum height and a 40-foot setback from any property line, and does not add any separate size, placement, or plumbing standard specific to a rainwater collection system. Separately, Section 5.4(4), the county's building-architecture standard for residential dwellings outside the commercial and industrial corridor, requires new residential units to adopt sustainability features to cut energy and water use, and lists among the options in subsection (4)(c) low-flow bathroom and kitchen faucets or grey-water or rainwater conservation systems, alongside Energy Star windows and specific wall, foundation, and ceiling insulation R-values in subsection (4)(b).

That makes a rainwater system one of several ways a residential developer can satisfy the water-conservation piece of Section 5.4(4), rather than a mandate applied to every lot.