Groundline

Evidence-first land development intelligence.

See what land can become
before you pay for it.

Type an address. Groundline resolves the parcel, applies the published zoning with a citation behind every number, computes the buildable envelope from real geometry, and runs the pro forma on your cost and exit assumptions — with an honest label on every gap.

Every number cites its ordinance section Live Fulton County & City of Atlanta data Gaps disclosed, never smoothed over
10
deterministic engines — no model invents a figure
13
zoning districts structured, field by field
77
ordinance sections cited by the analyses
4
kinds of evidence: fact, assumption, calculation, unavailable

Signed in, the demonstration workspace shows the full pro forma, valuation, plan-matching and report pipeline on clearly labelled fictional data.

What makes an answer trustworthy

Numbers come from engines, not from a model

Setbacks, envelopes, yields and returns are computed by versioned deterministic code. The AI reads the result and explains it — it is structurally unable to invent a figure.

Every fact carries a source, a section and dates

Which ordinance section, when it was retrieved, and its review status. When Groundline holds only a section number and not the verbatim text, the citation says exactly that.

Gaps are stated, not smoothed over

A contextual setback that needs a staff determination is labelled as one. A flood map nobody checked reads as unresolved — never as clear.

Your projects are yours

No training on customer data, configurable retention, permanent deletion, confidential-project mode.

From address to decision in one pass

Nine steps that today take a developer several days across a county GIS site, a PDF ordinance, a spreadsheet and three phone calls.

STEP 1

Resolve the parcel

Address, APN or map click resolves to a parcel with ranked candidates. Ambiguous matches ask rather than guess.

STEP 2

Establish the governing rules

Base district, overlays in published precedence order, and every dimensional standard with its ordinance section.

STEP 3

Compute the envelope

Setbacks and mapped easements applied to real geometry, exactly on convex lots and by distance field on irregular ones.

STEP 4

Name the binding constraint

Not just "12,640 sq ft" but which single rule caps it — the thing a variance request would have to ask for.

STEP 5

Test what fits

Architectural plan footprints placed and rotated inside the envelope, classified five ways including "insufficient data".

STEP 6

Model the money

Full pro forma with every line item and formula: total development cost, returns, IRR, DSCR, break-evens, sensitivity.

STEP 7

Value it three ways

Sales comparison, cost and income approaches reconciled with visible weights, plus the maximum supportable land price.

STEP 8

Ask follow-up questions

A Copilot that can only cite what the engines produced, and says so when Groundline does not know.

STEP 9

Export the evidence

A versioned report with sources, assumptions, open questions and the professionals who should resolve them.

A worked example — a real parcel, live data

These figures come from the live lookup against a real Atlanta address: Fulton County parcel records and City of Atlanta zoning, fetched at query time. Run it yourself →

Lot area
9,219 sq ft
1129 Arlington Ave SW, zoned R-4A
Buildable envelope
5,017 sq ft
after 30 ft front, 7 ft side, 15 ft rear setbacks
Max floor area
4,610 sq ft
binding: floor area ratio 0.50 — § 16-06A.008
Max footprint
5,017 sq ft
the setbacks, not coverage, bound this one
The third tile is the pointThe setbacks leave room for a 5,017 sq ft footprint — but the floor area ratio caps TOTAL floor area at 4,610 sq ft, so a building using the whole footprint could only ever be one storey, and not even that. Groundline names which rule actually binds on every parcel, because "how big can I build?" is never answered by the loosest number.

Built for both sides of the counter

Groundline — commercial

For developers, builders, investors, brokers, architects, engineers, lenders and appraisers who need to know whether a parcel deserves further due diligence before they spend real money or lose the option.

  • Property Copilot with cited answers
  • Buildable envelope and yield analysis
  • Development scenarios and sensitivity
  • Automated valuation and comparable grids
  • Architectural plan matching
  • Opportunity discovery and alerts
  • Project workspace, sharing and reports

Create a free account

Groundline Civic — municipal

For planning, zoning, building, permitting, inspections and economic development teams who want fewer incomplete applications and a shorter path from submission to decision.

  • Configurable application intake with completeness validation
  • Departmental review routing and service-level tracking
  • AI-assisted plan review that never approves anything on its own
  • Inspection scheduling and a mobile inspector interface
  • Operational dashboards and public-records export
  • Grant discovery, tracking and compliance

See the municipal platform

Coverage today

Groundline publishes a jurisdiction only after it passes a golden-parcel validation suite. We would rather cover one city correctly than fifty approximately.

JurisdictionStateDistrictsOverlaysRules versionStatusKnown gaps
City of Atlanta, live lookupGA802026.7.0Live preview9
Greer, SC, live lookupSCParcels & districts live — standards pending2
Spartanburg, SC, live lookupSCParcels & districts live — standards pending2
West Columbia, SC, live lookupSCParcels & districts live — standards pending1
Demonstration workspace (fictional jurisdiction)KS532026.1.0Validated5
What the Atlanta known gaps are
  • Groundline holds the section NUMBERS of the Atlanta Code provisions behind each standard, not their official headings or verbatim text. Citations therefore name the section without quoting it.
  • Only R-3, R-3A, R-4, R-4A, R-4B, R-5, R-LC and O-I are structured. Multifamily (RG), commercial (C-1 to C-5), industrial (I-1, I-2), mixed-use (MRC/MR) and every SPI district resolve to a district name with no standards.
  • Overlay and SPI districts are detected from the mapped zone class but their modifiers are NOT applied. An overlay can supersede the base standards shown.
  • Land Use Intensity (LUI) ratios, which set residential density in R-LC and O-I, are not structured. Unit counts in those districts are reported as unresolved rather than estimated.
  • Transitional height planes (O-I and districts abutting protected residential) are not modelled; the height shown is the base district figure where one is published.
  • Street frontage is inferred from the geocoded address point, not from a road centreline layer. Frontage length, corner-lot status and street-side yards are therefore not determined.
  • FEMA flood zones, floodway, slope, wetlands, protected trees, recorded easements and utility availability are not connected. Any of them can prevent development and none has been checked.
  • DeKalb County parcels (east Atlanta) are not connected; only the Fulton County portion of the city resolves.
  • No golden-parcel validation suite has been run for Atlanta, so the jurisdiction is not marked production-ready.

How jurisdiction onboarding works →

Start with one property

A real Atlanta address against live county and city data, or the demonstration workspace with the full pro forma, valuation and report pipeline on clearly labelled fictional data.