Retaining wall service area: Cumming and Forsyth County

Calls and requests from these places go to a local retaining wall pro who works in Forsyth County:

• Cumming. The county seat, on Georgia 400 about halfway up the county. The Census estimates about 12,500 people in the city and about 282,800 in the county in 2025.
• The rest of Forsyth County. Communities and areas such as Silver City, Coal Mountain, Matt, Ducktown, Big Creek, Vickery Creek and Haw Creek, and the neighborhoods and lake lots in between.

Not sure whether you're in the area? Call and ask.

Calls are answered weekdays, 9 to 6. After hours, leave your name, address and what's going on, and you'll get a call back first thing the next business day.

What is the ground like in Forsyth County?

Forsyth County is in Georgia's Piedmont, on rolling hills with red clay beneath the topsoil. Madison and Cecil soils are common here, and USDA maps Madison on slopes of 2 to 60 percent. USDA rates these soils as a whole as well drained, but the clay itself holds water and drains slowly once water gets to it, as UGA's extension notes. The New Georgia Encyclopedia calls the Piedmont's saprolite highly erodible once its cover is gone.

The county's growth followed Georgia 400, and about 30 percent of Lake Lanier's shoreline lies here, where the Corps of Engineers describes the terrain as rolling to steep. So the usual jobs are about holding ground on a slope: leveling a backyard,fixing a wall that has moved, getting water out from behind one, or replacing an old timber wall.

Who handles retaining wall permits in Forsyth County?

Outside city limits, Forsyth County requires a permit and an engineered design for a wall over 6 feet, measured from the bottom of the footing, and its Department of Engineering approves the wall before the building permit is issued. Inside Cumming, the city has its own fence and retaining wall application, with a site plan and inspections. On Lake Lanier, any work on public land needs a Corps of Engineers permit first. The permit page has the details.

Sources: New Georgia Encyclopedia, Cumming (source); New Georgia Encyclopedia, Forsyth County (source); New Georgia Encyclopedia, Piedmont geographic region (source); US Census Bureau, QuickFacts (source); Forsyth County, Comprehensive Plan 2022-2042 (source); USDA NRCS, Madison soil series (source); USDA NRCS, Cecil soil series (source); University of Georgia CAES, on clay soil (source); Forsyth County, Fence and retaining wall permit packet (source); City of Cumming, Fence and retaining wall permit application (source); US Army Corps of Engineers, Lake Sidney Lanier Shoreline Management Plan (source).

Last reviewed November 5, 2026.