Fayette County, GA Sidewalk & Pedestrian Rules: Encroachment Permits (2026)

Section 104-55 puts the county engineering department in charge of every curb cut onto a Fayette County road, acting in place of the state department of transportation for design review. Before a homeowner or builder can open a new driveway to a county right-of-way or a prescriptive easement, the engineering department has to approve a driveway application permit; the only carve-out is for residential developments on internal local roads, which skip that step entirely. Once a permit is in hand, the numeric limits kick in: a residential lot gets at most two driveway cuts (one if no shared driveway has been authorized), each capped at 24 feet wide measured at the right-of-way line, and set back at least two feet from any side or rear property line.

Agricultural-residential (A-R) lots using a drive for farm purposes are exempt from the two-cut cap but still have to meet every other residential access standard. Sight distance matters too: a driveway on a road posted at 25 mph or less needs 200 feet of clear sightline in both directions, with GDOT's manual controlling on faster roads. Nonresidential property owners go through a parallel but separate track, needing an approved site plan or certificate of zoning compliance from the planning and zoning department rather than the engineering department's driveway permit, unless the engineer waives it for a county-initiated project. Both residential and nonresidential lots must meet the street-frontage access standard in section 110-67 before a driveway permit can be approved.