Getting oriented · Gwinnett County
For New Residents
Mulberry is governed by a five-member city council, one member elected from each of five districts, and a professional city manager who runs the day-to-day administration. The city itself provides three services: planning and zoning, code enforcement, and stormwater management.
Everything else you use in a normal week, from schools and libraries to parks, roads, and trash, continues to come from Gwinnett County during the city's early years. New residents mostly notice Mulberry when a permit, a zoning question, or a neighborhood development decision comes up. Here is how the city works and how to be part of it.
Who runs it
Who governs Mulberry
Mulberry uses the council-manager form of government. Five council members each represent a district inside the city, and the council chooses one of its own members to serve as mayor. A professional city manager handles the day-to-day work of the city, under the council's direction. Every council seat is elected within its district, so every resident has one council member who is specifically theirs.
The full government explainerThe city's own work
Three services, everything else stays county
The city of Mulberry directly provides planning and zoning, code enforcement, and stormwater management. If you are building, adding on, or buying into a development, the city is the office you will talk to. For public safety, roads, parks, the school system, garbage, property taxes, and courts, the answer is Gwinnett County, exactly as it was before the city existed.
The county is also who handles elections and voter registration. Registering to vote with the county is what puts you on the rolls for both county and city elections.
Meetings and records
Where is the city business done?
The city council holds regular meetings in public, generally monthly in the first years of the city, with special called meetings when business demands them. Agendas and minutes are published in advance, and the meetings are available to watch remotely. Any resident can sign up to speak during the public-comment part of a meeting, which is the direct, on-record way to put a concern to the whole council at once.
Between meetings, the most useful relationships for a new resident are the district council member, who represents your specific neighborhood, and the city's official website, which carries the agenda calendar, meeting recordings, and city contact information.
Getting involved
How residents shape what the city decides
Citizen boards
The city runs volunteer boards that hear the planning work first, including a planning commission and a zoning board of appeals. They are the entry points for residents who want to be part of development decisions before they land on the council agenda.
The boundaries of a light city
A limited-service city has small limits by design. Mulberry cannot raise a property-tax millage without a public vote, and it does not run its own schools, police, or parks. Knowing the limits tells you which office actually owns the question you are asking.
The simplest first step for a new resident: find your district, meet your council member, and put one meeting on the calendar. You will know more about how the city works after one hour in the room than most people learn in a year of mailers.
An editorial guide, not a listings site. Updated September 13, 2026. Real-estate guidance on this page is provided by Rob Dietrich, REALTOR® with eXp Realty, LLC.