Gordon County, GA Zoning Overlays & Bonuses: Downtown Design Guide (2026)

Section 4.02.01 of the Unified Land Development Code creates the New Echota Overlay District for all property east of Interstate 75 abutting or adjacent to State Highway 225, Craigtown Road, and Newtown Church Road. Its purpose is to protect the historic setting and viewsheds of the New Echota Historic Site, the former Cherokee Capital and Trail of Tears site, so that new development complements rather than detracts from the site. The standards apply on top of the underlying zoning district, and the stricter standard controls in any conflict. Farm structures, single-family dwellings and manufactured homes on an existing lot of record, and developments that existed on the effective date are outside them.

For commercial development the code sets numbers. A principal building tops out at forty (40) feet. Not less than sixty (60) percent of the front facade must be public entrances and windows, blank facades visible from a public right-of-way are prohibited, and mirrored, smoked, or tinted glass is prohibited. Facades facing a public right-of-way must be a minimum of eighty (80) percent brick and/or stone, and side facades a minimum of fifty (50) percent. Facade colors must be low reflectance and neutral or earth-tone, and black, fluorescent, neon, and metallic colors are prohibited. Gable and pyramid roofs need a minimum slope of 6/12, hip roofs 4/12, and every roof a twelve-inch eave overhang, with shed roofs prohibited except on small attached wings.

Signs are limited to one wall sign of up to two square feet per linear foot of facade, capped at 150 square feet, and a monument sign no taller than six feet and no larger than 35 square feet per side, with no internal illumination. The tree rules require residential and mixed-use developments to retain twenty percent of the site as woodland and commercial, office, institutional, and industrial developments fifteen percent. Section 4.02.02 sets separate standards for the Resaca Battlefield Overlay District.