At 5680 Whitner Drive in Sandy Springs, one house built in 1974 sat on two acres. This spring the site came forward in a proposal for three new homes, as Rough Draft Atlanta reported in April 2026. The same report described two homes planned on a 1.3-acre assemblage at 5800 Mitchell Road.
These cases are typical. Sandy Springs' own housing data shows that a buyer bidding on an older house here is often competing with someone who counts lots, buildable square footage and replacement trees rather than bedrooms. For the owner of a 1970s or 1980s home, that changes what sets the price.
The city's permit data shows who is building
The city's draft Housing Needs Assessment, prepared by HR&A Advisors, calls Sandy Springs "a built-out community with little undeveloped land or open space." It says new housing "often involves the demolition of older, lower cost homes." The figures behind that statement come from city permit records for 2024 and 2025:
| Measure, 2024–2025 permits | Figure |
|---|---|
| Single-family detached permits on lots with existing structures | 65% |
| Single-family detached permits on empty lots | 35% |
| Permits on previously developed residential lots pulled by applicants "expressly looking to 'flip'" | More than 40% |
| Median valuation of permitted single-family homes | Over $1.3 million |
| Median square footage of permitted single-family homes | Roughly 8,000 sq ft |
The report says the 65% figure "often translated to a one for one replacement of older, more affordable stock, with newer, more expensive homes." A developer interviewed for the assessment described the trend as the redevelopment of "affordable ranch homes into multimillion dollar homes."
The valuation and square footage figures come from permits, not closed sales. They still describe the end product a builder has in mind when looking at an older house. When the typical permitted home is valued above $1.3 million and runs about 8,000 square feet, the existing structure is mostly a demolition cost. What gets a strong offer is the land under it and what the code allows on that land.
The assessment's sales analysis for 2024 and 2025 shows which houses are in the way. Homes built before 2000 made up nearly 90% of sales the report classifies as affordable to first-time buyers, and nearly half of those were built in the 1980s. The report calls this older stock "the primary entry point into homeownership today" and warns that the supply "will continue to shrink through redevelopment and appreciation." For a seller, that means two very different buyer pools may want the same 1980s house. One plans to live in it. The other plans to replace it.
Three proposals show how a builder counts
When a builder looks at an older property, the first question is how many homes the land can hold. Recent Sandy Springs proposals put that question in plain numbers.
- 5680 Whitner Drive: one 1974 house on two acres, proposed as three homes.
- 5800 Mitchell Road: an assembled 1.3-acre site, proposed as two homes.
- Spalding Drive at Pitts Road: The Providence Group, based in Johns Creek, proposed replacing five existing Sandy Springs houses with 21 new single-family homes, plus three more across the Dunwoody line, according to Appen Media.
The Spalding Drive case shows the biggest lever. Rough Draft Atlanta reported in April 2026 that the five properties total about 7.9 acres. The rezoning from residential estate to RD-9 would shift the minimum lot size from one acre to 9,000 square feet, with an average home size of 4,000 square feet. Under the old minimum, 7.9 acres held five houses. After the rezoning it was proposed for 21.
That is why two older houses of similar size and age in Sandy Springs can be worth very different amounts to a builder. Acreage, frontage, the ability to combine with a neighbor's lot, and the zoning history of the street all affect how many homes can follow. The house itself barely figures in.
Mayor Rusty Paul gave a land figure during a council discussion of the assessment. "We're not going to be able to build $400,000 houses in Sandy Springs when land costs are a million dollars per acre," he said, as Rough Draft Atlanta reported on October 9, 2026. That is the mayor's estimate, not a documented series of lot sales. Our research did not find public, street-level teardown sale prices for 2026. Any per-acre number for a specific property has to come from that property's own comparable sales.
What a builder subtracts before making an offer
When land is valued by what it can produce, anything that reduces what it can produce, or raises the cost of producing it, comes off the offer. Two parts of Sandy Springs' development rules come up on almost every older lot with mature trees.
Tree canopy. The city requires at least 35% tree-canopy coverage on residential property. If removing protected trees leaves a site below that minimum, or the site is already below it, the owner pays $1,200 into the city's Tree Fund and plants one replacement tree for each protected tree removed. Removing a Landmark Tree requires 1.5 replacement trees. Replacements must be large-canopy species at least 2.5 inches in size and must be maintained for three full growing seasons. The city's tree removal permit page sets out these requirements. On a wooded lot where the house sits back from the street, the location of large trees can decide where a new footprint fits and what clearing it costs.
Stormwater. Under the Sandy Springs development code, stormwater standards apply to new development or redevelopment that creates or adds at least 1,000 square feet of impervious surface or disturbs at least 5,000 square feet of land. In a declared sensitive area, any amount of new impervious cover triggers them. An 8,000-square-foot replacement home clears those thresholds easily.
The Nancy Creek Basin, a designated sensitive area, has stricter rules. For single-unit residential work there, the code requires on-site infiltration, within 24 hours, of the first 1.2 inches of rainfall over the limit-of-disturbance area and another 1.2 inches over impervious areas. At least 90% of the site's impervious area must drain to infiltration. Two lots at the same price, one inside the basin and one outside, can carry different engineering costs before any framing starts.
None of this shows up in a listing's bedroom count. All of it affects what a builder can offer.
Why this matters at the listing stage
For the owner of an older house, the data points to two sets of buyers. A household looking for a well-kept 1980s home will judge the kitchen, the roof and the floor plan. A builder will judge acreage, lot dimensions, canopy, basin location and zoning. The assessment's figure that more than 40% of permits on previously developed residential lots were pulled by people planning to flip them shows that the second group is a regular part of the market.
Pricing the house only against nearby resales can leave land value unaccounted for. Pricing it only as a lot can do the same to a home that a family would pay more to keep. Which group sets the price depends on details specific to the parcel, which is why a survey, a tree inventory and a zoning check can tell you more than a list of finishes.
Buyers looking for an older home to live in face the reverse. On a large lot in a sought-after pocket, they may be bidding against someone who plans to demolish. The assessment's language about older stock shrinking "through redevelopment and appreciation" describes that competition directly.
The rules that could still change the math
The assessment feeds into Sandy Springs' comprehensive plan rewrite, called the Next Chapter. Rough Draft Atlanta reported in September 2026 that the plan's policies will guide where a wider range of housing may go, while the development code remains the legally binding document. The plan was still being written at the time of that report, so any change to what a lot can hold would come later, through the code.
The assessment itself is still a draft. The city's housing needs assessment page calls it the October 2026 draft, and the HR&A document's title page is dated July 2026. Council Member Andrew Chinsky told colleagues the city has "some hard choices to make in the next nine months as we finalize our comp plan," per Rough Draft Atlanta's October 9 report.
Questions sellers and buyers ask
Does the 65% figure mean most older homes are being torn down? No. It means that among single-family detached permits issued in 2024 and 2025, 65% were on lots that already had a structure. It describes where new homes are built, not what share of existing homes was demolished.
Is there a published per-acre land price for Sandy Springs? The million-dollars-per-acre figure is Mayor Rusty Paul's statement as reported by Rough Draft Atlanta. Our research did not find a published series of 2026 teardown lot sales.
Where would a change to infill rules come from? The Next Chapter comprehensive plan was still being drafted as of September 2026 reporting, and the development code is the legally binding document. Until the code changes, the tree-canopy and stormwater requirements described above are the rules covered here that most directly affect rebuilds.
If you own an older home on a substantial Sandy Springs lot and want to know what both kinds of buyers would see in it, Shanna Smith can walk the property with you, review the lot's canopy, zoning and stormwater picture alongside the house itself, and plan a listing strategy built on those details. Request a private consultation.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
