In their first interaction with the public, leaders of the revived East Cobb Cityhood movement on Wednesday stressed the importance of local control, especially when it comes to zoning and development matters.
During a virtual town hall meeting, cityhood legislation sponsors and members of the East Cobb Cityhood Committee took pre-screened questions from the public and sent out a survey for further feedback.
The committee also released biographical details about the cityhood committee members.
“It’s really about self-determination,” said State Rep. Matt Dollar, who introduced a cityhood bill before the end of the 2021 session. “If people in the cities of Marietta and Smyrna have that right, then the citizens of East Cobb should have that right as well.”
Much of the conversation revolved around the pro-cityhood theme of “preservation” of what’s been established in East Cobb—single family homes, limited density and quality-of-life amenities—as other areas of the county are becoming more urbanized and feature mixed-use developments.
“If people want density, they can go to the Cumberland area or Smyrna,” Dollar said. “People in East Cobb live here because they want the suburban lifestyle. They don’t want density.”
Former Cobb school board member Scott Sweeney, a member of the cityhood committee, added that it’s important for East Cobbers to protect “what’s in our back yard.”
The legislation sponsored by Dollar and State Rep. Sharon Cooper—both East Cobb Republicans—is vastly different from a 2019 bill he introduced and that she was lukewarm to support.
Cooper, who said last October she thought the cityhood issue was dead, said that some other Cobb cityhood bills introduced this year—in Lost Mountain and Vinings—also have been spurred by concerns over density.
The five-member Cobb Board of Commissioners, which represents nearly 800,000 people, is currently grasping with major redevelopment cases in East Cobb, including the Johnson Ferry-Shallowford and Sprayberry Crossing areas, that have drawn community opposition.
A city of East Cobb, Cooper argued, “would be people from our neighborhoods, people we live with, making those zoning decisions.”
The new effort scales down the size of the proposed city of East Cobb from more than 100,000 to about 55,000, mainly along the Johnson Ferry Road corridor.
Dollar said feeback he received from 2019 indicated that the initial boundaries were too big, and didn’t lend themselves for a clear community identity.
The new bill calls for a six-member city council, with a mayor and vice mayor to be chosen every other year by the council.
While the 2019 East Cobb cityhood bill would have called for police and fire services, the new legislation is what’s called “city light” and includes planning and zoning, code enforcement and parks and recreation.
Dollar said the “hope here is to be revenue neutral,” meaning no millage rate would need to be established.
“It’s a very stable tax base with light services,” he said. “It is not an expensive endeavor.”
Still, some of the questions addressed at the town hall were over whether a new city would create another layer of government.
Dollar disagreed, saying it was a “shift” in selected services.
The other proposed services, code enforcement and parks and recreation, weren’t discussed much.
There was a mention of the former in reference to the Tokyo Valentino adult retail store that opened on Johnson Ferry Road last summer, and that now tied up in the courts as Cobb County is trying to shut it down.
Dollar said adding parks and recreation “seemed like a good fit,” noting that they’re services offered in the newer cities of Milton and Brookhaven.
The cityhood leaders also said Wednesday that a new financial feasibility study conducted by researchers at Georgia State University will cost an estimated $22,000 and will be ready by July.
Dollar said that what’s happening now is just the beginning of a process, that there’s plenty of time before the 2022 legislative session. The Georgia General Assembly would have to pass the cityhood bill before it would come up for a local referendum next November.
“What I ask people, whether you’re for [cityhood] or against it, is just to keep an open mind,” Dollar said.
Anyone interested in completing the cityhood survey can do so by clicking here.
Related content:
- Q & A: State Rep. Matt Dollar, Cityhood bill sponsor
- Cityhood group to hold virtual town hall April 14
- Cityhood opposition group calls renewed effort “Jaws 2”
- East Cobb Cityhood bill calls for Nov. 2022 referendum
- East Cobb Cityhood effort revived with new services, map
- East Cobb News Cityhood Page
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