Sprayberry Crossing zoning case

After months of delays, the Sprayberry Crossing rezoning case has been placed on the March zoning calendar and the Cobb Zoning Office has conducted a formal analysis of the redevelopment project.

The office released its March agenda on Monday, ahead of next Tuesday’s Cobb Planning Commission meeting.

The zoning staff is recommending approval of the retail, townhome and apartment proposal by Atlantic Realty, an apartment developer, with conditions.

The proposal was first revealed last year, and included a virtual town hall meeting with the community.

But it’s a community that’s been divided over the project, with some citizens adamantly against apartments, and concerns about increased traffic.

The latest site plan (at the top) calls for 125 apartments, 125 senior living apartments, 44 townhomes, 36,000 square feet of retail and 8,000 square feet of office space. Most of the retail space would be for a supermarket, which on the latest map indicates a Lidl store.

The apartment numbers have been reduced from nearly 200 and the story height has come down from five to three, but community green space and a buffer around an existing cemetery that were on earlier site plans have been eliminated.

ROD projects are “site plan specific,” meaning that there aren’t minimum lot sizes, setbacks and buffers that are required in most rezoning cases.

At least 10 percent of the housing units in an ROD project must be set aside for residents making no more than 80 percent of an area’s average median income.

Last month Cobb commissioners voted 5-0 to eliminate the category, which stands for Redevelopment Overlay District.

That action doesn’t affect the Sprayberry Crossing case. The agenda item overview can be found here; here is the staff analysis. The full packet can be found at the first link in this post, pages 45-131.

Also on the agenda after two months of delays is another proposed redevelopment, for a campus of the new East Cobb Church and townhomes at Johnson Ferry and Shallowford roads (summary here).

North Point Ministries wants to purchase 33 acres at the southwest corner of that intersection to build the new East Cobb Church and an accompanying parking deck (latest site plan here).

North Point would sell the back portion of the property to Ashwood Development for 125 townhomes. There also would be some retail use.

The Cobb zoning staff has recommended denial for density, traffic and land-use reasons. Opponents are calling for low-density single-family housing. Citizens opposed to the project have made similar arguments, while others have applauded the addition of a new church to the community.

Kevin Moore, North Point’s attorney, said the single-family category is economically unfeasible; a 2016 rezoning case seeking a single-family development on the same property was withdrawn.

He repeated that claim during a virtual town hall earlier this month with Cobb Commissioner Jerica Richardson and Cobb Planning Commission member Tony Waybright, who offered a “conceptual plan” incorporating changes he said were suggested by community members.

Full packet information can be found on pages 244-271 of the meeting agenda.

Next Tuesday’s meeting will be the first for new Cobb Planning Commission member Deborah Dance. She’s formerly the Cobb County Attorney and was appointed by Commissioner JoAnn Birrell to represent District 3, which includes the Sprayberry Crossing property.

Dance succeeds longtime planning board member Judy Williams, who died of COVID-19 in January.

Related stories

• Cobb commissioners eliminate redevelopment zoning category
• Revised ‘JOSH’ conceptual plan unveiled at virtual town hall
• Cobb Planning Commission member from East Cobb dies
• Petitions created to support, oppose East Cobb Church zoning
• East Cobb Church zoning: ‘What we’re doing is ever-evolving’