Nineteen miles and thirty-five free-flow minutes — our furthest town by time, and further in practice than the mileage reads. Marietta has the oldest housing stock of the Cobb cities and the most commonly misunderstood historic-review situation of anywhere we work.
County
Cobb County
From the studio
19.2 miles, about 35 minutes with no traffic
Who issues the permit
City of Marietta — Building Inspections, a division of Public Works
Housing stock
33.3% of housing units were built before 1980; dominant decade the 1980s, at 25.6% of the housing stock
Residential ZIPs: 30008, 30060, 30064, 30067. Arriving via GA-120 west across the river; I-75 exits 261, 263, 265 and 267. Housing figures are American Community Survey five-year estimates and describe construction before 1980, which is the boundary the Census actually publishes — there is no 1978 bucket in any Census table.
What we run into in Marietta
Two regimes, two bodies, two different permit names
This is the fact about Marietta that gets botched most often, and it is worth stating carefully. The city's code carries two separate historic instruments in the same chapter. Article 7-8-8 establishes the Marietta Historic District and a nine-member Historic Board of Review, which issues a certificate of approval, and that regime does regulate exterior color. Article 7-8-9 establishes a Historic Preservation Commission, which issues a certificate of appropriateness, and that regime defines a material change in appearance as something visible from a street, sidewalk or area of public gathering — and expressly excludes exterior paint color. The two disagree with each other on the one question homeowners ask most, which is precisely why they get confused. The exemptions under 7-8-9 are unusually specific and genuinely useful: a new roof not visible from a public right-of-way, a roof replacement in the same color or in gray, black or white, and mechanical equipment replaced in the same location and at the same scale are all exempted, with a small allowance for higher-efficiency equipment being slightly larger.
The famous districts are federal, and no local review attaches to them
Marietta has five National Register historic districts — Northwest Marietta from 1975, Church Street–Cherokee Street from 1985, Washington Avenue and Whitlock Avenue both from 1989, and Atlanta–Frasier Street from 1995. Those names appear on every neighborhood sign and in every real-estate listing, and every one of them is a National Register designation rather than a local one. The only district named in the City of Marietta's own code is the Marietta Historic District, whose boundaries live on an official map filed with the city clerk rather than in the code text. So living inside a National Register district does not by itself put your renovation in front of any board. Whether it does depends on the local map, and that is the thing to check rather than the neighborhood sign. It is a genuinely useful distinction and it is the opposite of what most homeowners here assume.
The oldest Cobb stock, on the smallest owner-occupied base
A third of Marietta's housing was built before 1980 — the highest share of any Cobb city and the second-highest on our whole list, behind Dunwoody — with the 1980s as the largest single decade and a median year built of 1987. But the number that shapes our work here is a different one: Marietta is 47.2% owner-occupied, the lowest owner share anywhere we serve, which means the addressable owner-occupied base is roughly eleven and a half thousand units rather than the twenty-seven thousand the total housing count suggests. Combined with the drive — nineteen miles takes thirty-five free-flow minutes because the Chattahoochee has no direct crossing between Roswell Road and I-285 — Marietta is a town we work in deliberately rather than casually, generally on older-home projects where the age of the stock is the reason we were called.
We write one of these only where the town and the work genuinely change each other — a permitting rule, a housing type, a site condition. Where there is nothing specific to say, we have not said it.
We are in a historic district. Do we need approval?
Possibly not, and the neighborhood sign will not tell you. Marietta's five well-known districts are National Register designations, which carry no local review. The only locally designated district in the city code is the Marietta Historic District, and its boundaries live on a map filed with the city clerk. We check that map against your address before design.
Which board would we go to, and what is the permit called?
It depends which article applies. The Historic Board of Review issues a certificate of approval and does regulate exterior color; the Historic Preservation Commission issues a certificate of appropriateness and expressly does not. They are two different bodies with two differently named approvals, and confusing them is the standard Marietta error.
Who issues an ordinary building permit in Marietta?
Building Inspections, which in Marietta sits inside Public Works rather than inside a development or community-development department. That is unusual among the jurisdictions we work in and it is worth knowing before you go looking for the right counter.
Tell us about a house in Marietta
The town is pre-filled. Four short steps, and it ends with a call from Priscilla within one business day.
