PFCA members at a recent Adopt-A-Mile cleanup event.
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Looking to give back to the community? Consider a role on the Powers Ferry Corridor Alliance’s Board of Directors. There are currently two board seats open for people interested in helping guide the work of the PFCA. Individual residents, HOA leaders and business owners in the area radiating out approximately two miles from the intersection of Terrell Mill and Powers Ferry Roads are encouraged to explore this interesting and fun work that does not require an excess of time. There are nine meetings a year and additional committee work depending on interest and availability.
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As far as routine business goes with the Cobb Board of Commissioners, approving neighborhood requests for street lights is as routine as it gets.
When at least 75 percent of a subdivision’s residents sign a petition in favor of pursuing a request for a street light district, that request typically gets added to the commissioners’ consent agenda.
There were four such requests on Tuesday’s consent agenda in various parts of the county.
But for an East Cobb subdivision whose residents include some who’ve wanted street lights for decades, a public hearing was called.
There was some opposition from homeowners living in the Brookcliff subdivision, located off Old Canton Road north of Sewell Mill Road, and a public meeting was requested.
Several others turned out to voice their support for the Brookcliff Street Light District, which would assess a monthly street light service charge for homeowners after the lights are installed by Cobb DOT.
Commissioners voted 5-0 with little discussion to approve the request, but Commissioner JoAnn Birrell noted the novelty of the event, which also was discussed at an agenda work session on Monday.
She said in her more than 12 years in office, she doesn’t recall such a hearing over street lights.
The public hearing and ensuing conversation Tuesday spanned more than a half-hour.
Brookcliff opened in the early 1980s and comprises 155 homes, which are valued in the $400,000 range and above.
It’s a neighborhood of rolling hills straddling Sewell Mill Creek to the north. Like many East Cobb subdivision, it has a formal homeowners association with mandatory dues for homeowners who must abide by legally binding requirements and covenants.
Brookcliff also has a swim/tennis facility and other regular activities, such as a garden club and book club.
What Brookcliff doesn’t have are sidewalks and street lights. Some residents have been eager for the latter for almost as long as they have lived there.
Brookcliff resident Walt Strother
Walt Strother, one of the original homeowners of Brookcliff, said during the hearing that trying to get street lights “was never a spur of the moment decision or effort. For the better part of the last 40 years, several marginal attempts have been made, most recently 20 years ago.”
But ineffective HOA leadership and organization undermined those attempts, Strother said.
Three years ago, he added, “there was a collective enough is enough,” beginning a 27-month journey to making a formal application.
That’s 85 percent in response to the question “What can we do to make Brookcliff a better place to live?”
Strother said the response “was immediate and overwhelming. Street lights.”
He noted that Cobb officials in the late 1970s expressed a desire for all neighborhoods to have street lights.
The Brookcliff POA has collected $45,778 in fees from residents to be forwarded to Cobb DOT, which will install poles and lights.
Residents will pay $9.80 a month for 36 months for installation and upfront fees, then will be billed $3.80 a month after that by the Cobb County Water System.
One of his Brookcliff neighbors, Mike Gault, moved there in 1996, and said “Brookcliff has always been an incredibly dark” neighborhood.
He said when he first moved there, he would walk his black Lab at night after work and spent a lot of time dodging cars.
Gault said the lack of street lights also has been an issue with school bus stops in the winter, with shorter daylight hours.
Cindy Krakowski, a Brookcliff homeowner, was opposed to the new street light district, saying the HOA doesn’t have the authority to use money collected for swimming and tennis use, and claimed the organization was in the red by $54,000 this year.
“They knew if they had to ask every homeowner in the neighborhood for $300 for this initiative, they wouldn’t have gotten 75 percent of the votes,” she said.
Mike Kelly, the current Brookcliff POA president, said the body has met the street light requirements and that it properly followed by-laws in doing so.
In referring to Krakowski’s claims, he said “disengagement from the process is not an excuse” and that the POA reached out extensively to residents for feedback, communication and meetings.
He said the $45,788 sum represents the highest cash balance in the POA’s history and in a slide he showed during the hearing, indicated it would be ahead of budget after paying for the street lights.
“There is no diversion of funds,” said Kelly, noting that the street light request was included as a line-item in the POA budget. “There’s no question there’s a mandate from Brookcliff.”
More than 85 percent of Brookcliff residents said they wanted street lights.
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Citizens lined up on either side of the Sprayberry Crossing rezoning case haven’t completely put last week’s decision behind them, but they are moving on to some other community and political projects.
Some of those who were against the Cobb Board of Commissioners’ 4-1 vote to approve the mixed-use redevelopment have vowed to work to defeat District 3 commissioner JoAnn, who made a long presentation last Tuesday in favor of approving the project.
A Facebook Group called ROD-1 Residents Against Apartments (named after the rezoning case number) has more than 500 members, and group leader Tim Carini indicated after the vote last week a desire to change it to the Sandy Plains Community Coalition.
“She needs to be voted out,” Carini said, echoing other opponents, including Wendi Cliett May, who said, “the next thing on our list is to get her out of office. She does not care about the people in our district. It’s sad. She’ll never have the luxury of another uncontested election.”
Birrell, a Republican who has represented the Northeast Cobb area since 2010, is up for re-election in 2022. In 2018, she defeated Democrat Caroline Holko with 52 percent of the vote.
The Sprayberry Crossing Action Facebook group has nearly 6,000 members, with many in support of the redevelopment, and some leaders said they will monitoring the plan review process to come.
One of the group’s leaders, Shane Spink, also is reviving another civic effort that he began last year.
It’s called SPARC COBB, and unlike the Sprayberry Crossing group, this one’s a private group that stands for Sprayberry Area Residents Council. It invites those “who advocate for the well-being of all residents. This council offers a forum for residents to be part of decision making within their own community.”
Among the initial posts asked over the weekend were to ask citizens what kinds of new businesses they want to see in the area, and urged nearby residents to vote for the Sprayberry Bottle Shop in a “Best Of” poll in a business publication.
“So many times when people form these groups they are always against something, it’s always better to be for something and that’s what I want us to do,” Spink said in one of his initial messages.
However, more rezoning issues figure to galvanize the community soon.
Another major nearby proposal seeks to convert nearly 50 arcres of currently undeveloped land on Ebenezer Road into a 112-home residential development. That request by Pulte Home Company was continued until July.
Spink also is part of a group pushing for a rebuild of Sprayberry High School, which has been included on a list of projects for a proposed Cobb Education SPLOST renewal that would begin in 2024.
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A panoramic view of Highland Lake, the centerpiece of the Loch Highland neighborhood. (East Cobb News photos by Wendy Parker)
When the Cobb Community Development Agency scheduled a series of public open houses in the Johnson Ferry-Shallowford area for this spring, residents of the East Cobb community of Loch Highland knew they had a good opportunity to be heard about a long-standing issue they claim hasn’t been adequately addressed by the county.
On Monday, at the second of three “JOSH” sessions to gain input on a range of community development issues, several Loch Highland residents turned out to provide feedback, and make their case for dealing with stormwater problems.
Located between Mabry Road and Wesley Chapel Road, and near the top of the “JOSH” study area (see map inset below, and full-size map here), Loch Highland provides one of the more scenic community environments in East Cobb. Opened in the 1970s and featuring wood-framed homes to blend in with natural surroundings, Loch Highland was designed to feel like a resort while being convenient for commuting and everyday suburban life.
For years Loch Highland homeowners have taken it upon themselves, and at their own expense, to clean out the two scenic lakes that often get filled with silt and other sediments from rain and storms.
Even with a slender dam and spillway that connects both lakes under Loch Highland Pass, the main road in the neighborhood, the lakes often flood during heavy rains. There were lengthy negotiations during the 1980s between Cobb and Loch Highland residents over how to pay for damage to the dam caused during a period of heavy development.
The Loch Highland neighborhood and lakes are circled in red, and are located at the north end of the “JOSH” study area.
“We probably have the largest catchment area in this part of the county,” said Dave Taylor, a long-time Loch Highland resident.
What he and some of his neighbors have been suggesting for years is what they emphasized at Monday’s meeting at Chestnut Ridge Christian Church: The establishment of a stormwater utility fee that would be earmarked for keeping the lakes clean.
“Half of our [homeowners association] dues go to the maintenance of the lakes,” Taylor said. He added that while the lake is healthy, upstream development threatens that health.
More than that, homeowners in Loch Highland, which number around 400, wonder how much more it will cost them, with no financial relief in sight.
Jim Wallace, who’s lived in Loch Highland for more than 40 years, estimates that neighbors have spent nearly $1 million on lake cleanup since the year 2000.
He’s upset that water that runs downstream from public roads and lands have become the sole burden of private property owners.
“If you see an unmowed median in a road, [county] commissioners will hear about it,” Wallace said. “But not when it’s a lake.” Even on private property, “it serves a public purpose.”
That public purpose in Loch Highland, with the dam and spillway bolstering one of the largest retention ponds in Cobb County, is to prevent further stormwater runoff from affecting other communities.
The Loch Highland community website has an information page about the stormwater issues, including an explanation of how a stormwater utility fee would work. That fee would be included in water bills and would cost around $3.50 a month for a home of around 2,800 square feet. The actual rate would be calculated on the amount of impervious surfaces for each home.
When asked if that’s just a complicated way of proposing a tax, Taylor denied that, pointing out that the collected fee revenue would go only to stormwater maintenance functions.
Cobb has 130 dams and more than 15,000 retention ponds, and more than 20 percent of its land is located in a flood plain.
While the JOSH meetings cover many topics, from land use and transportation to parks and other amenities, stormwater management was bound to be a subject of interest. The study area is bordered on the east by Willeo Creek and includes a number of other lakes and ponds.
Cobb Planning Commissioner Thea Powell, a former Cobb commissioner and East Cobb Civic Association leader who lives in nearby Chimney Lake, said another factor that has frustrated citizens about stormwater concerns is that “everything that affects us is outside the study area.”
She noted that the “JOSH” open houses are a rare occasion in which feedback on stormwater issues has been encouraged.
David Breaden, at left, of the Cobb Stormwater Management office, looks over a county topographical map with a citizen at Monday’s “JOSH” open house.
“The fact that the county is looking at this is good,” Powell said.
Jason Gaines, planning division director for the Cobb Community Development Agency, acknowledged that stormwater issues were one of the main areas of input his office is seeking in the JOSH process, which was established at the behest of District 2 Cobb commissioner Bob Ott.
Gaines said a more formal presentation summarizing the first two meetings will take place at the final meeting on May 8, also at the Chestnut Ridge Christian Church (2663 Johnson Ferry Road), from 7-9 p.m.
The master plan concept that is developed from the JOSH meetings will be incorporated into the Cobb 2040 Comprehensive Plan.
Citizens can offer feedback online, and view documents, maps and other information related to the study area, by visiting the JOSH website.
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The front portion of residential property at Lower Roswell Road and Bermuda Drive that’s up for higher density rezoning. (East Cobb News photos by Wendy Parker)
Tucked away on a cul-de-sac street off Lower Roswell Road, not far from the clatter of the East Cobb Pipeline Project and featuring some lush and ample residential elbow room, lies the Bermuda Drive neighborhood.
More formally it’s known as the Carter subdivision, named after the homebuilder who constructed nine ranch-style homes on big lots in the early 1960s. This was just before East Cobb went from rural to suburban, and as developers were still maintaining something of a pastoral atmosphere for new properties.
Several residents have been there nearly as long as the subdivision (located just across Lower Roswell from Holy Family Catholic Church), and some are related to one another. To say that the Bermuda Drive neighborhood is a tight-knit one is an understatement.
“It’s a community, not just a street,” said Elaine Dover, who’s lived in her home on Bermuda Drive for 44 years.
Yet like many East Cobb neighborhoods, Bermuda Drive isn’t immune to a rapid, explosive new wave of residential building that emphasizes density over just about anything else. When a 2.172-acre tract of land at the entrance to her community was proposed for rezoning, Dover and her neighbors were concerned.
R-15 communities are nearby, but not contiguous, to the Bermuda Drive neighborhood.
The rezoning (here’s the agenda item information) is being sought by Rabin Dayani, an established developer in the area. He wants to change the current R-20 zoning to R-15 to build five two-story homes on the land.
Dayani wants not only bigger houses (with a minimum of 2,500 square feet) than what’s on Bermuda Drive, they also would be on higher density land than what’s nearby. He could build four homes on the land under the present zoning category, which would have been fine with the Bermuda Drive neighborhood.
According to the Cobb zoning staff (which is recommending denial), the land was initially zoned for two lots in 1959.
When Dover and others spoke in opposition to the rezoning Tuesday before the Cobb Planning Commission, they used word “precedent” often. It’s a word that has come up frequently in recent East Cobb zoning cases, as residents have seen higher-density many residential and commercial projects proposed near their communities. Some have been approved, others have not, but in so many cases, the battle that’s being fought is quite often over precedent.
Even if it’s a difference over one house, as is the case in the Bermuda Drive neighborhood.
Developer’s rendering of five homes with access to Bermuda Drive. Current zoning would allow up to four homes.
“We feel it will set a precedent in this area,” said Jill Flamm of the East Cobb Civic Association, who also spoke in opposition before the planning commission. “R-20 is suitable for new development in this area.”
Dover submitted a petition to the planning commission, saying that reducing density from R-20 would open up the Bermuda Drive neighborhood “to a negative precedent.”
The planning commission—which is an advisory board appointed by the Cobb Board of Commissioners—agreed, and voted to deny Dayani’s proposal by a 5-0 vote. Mike Terry, the planning commission chairman who represents District 2 in East Cobb, said at first he didn’t think the rezoning would draw much opposition. But he heard plenty from Bermuda Drive homeowners, and read excerpts from e-mails he’s received.
Terry said the neighbors aren’t anti-growth, but favor “smart” growth that complies with the land use plan and isn’t dramatically out of step with existing residences.
“They’re not saying don’t build here, but let’s leave the current zoning and build four quality homes,” Terry said. “I think four will be fine, but five is out of character. We need to protect the character of the neighborhood.”
Terry encouraged Dayani to revise his proposal before before Cobb commissioners have the final say on Oct. 17.
