Old Decatur, Parkwood, Clairemont Avenue Corridor, McDonough-Adams-King’s Highway and Ponce de Leon Court make up Decatur’s five local historic districts. The city’s permit page puts any work inside one of them on its list of jobs that need a building permit, and the city’s preservation pages describe an approval that comes first: a Certificate of Exemption from staff, or a Certificate of Appropriateness, which only the Historic Preservation Commission can grant.
Which of those a full gutter swap calls for, if either, isn’t written down. The ordinance never names gutters, and its district sections treat routine repairs differently. Before you sign with anyone, phone Decatur’s historic preservation staff at 678-553-6596 and ask how your job will be handled.
The guidance the city publishes leans toward keeping old gutters in service. Its 2011 Design Guidelines for Preservation, prepared by a Georgia State University class and posted on the city’s website, advise: “Avoid installing new gutters unless the historic materials are beyond repair.” Read that as guidance the city publishes, not as an adopted rule. Either way, note your current gutter shape, downspout shape and color before collecting quotes, and ask each company whether it can match them.
None of this reaches past the city line. The city warns that thousands of properties with Decatur mailing addresses are really in unincorporated DeKalb County, outside its historic review. Almost every home inside the city, about 99% by its count, uses ZIP 30030. With any other ZIP, or a street number four digits long, there’s a fair chance the house falls under the county instead.