Citizens living near the Sprayberry Crossing Shopping Center demanded county officials do something about the property that has been blighted for years. (ECN file)
We’re starting off our compilation of top East Cobb stories for 2018 with a rundown of what opened and closed in the community this year, especially restaurants, other notable businesses and zoning and development matters.
These are based on reader trends as well as newsworthiness. As you can see, this was quite the year in East Cobb for these subjects, especially restaurants and some major zoning cases that could establish changing development trends.
Two major redevelopment projects in the Powers Ferry Road corridor were approved this year, and they’re slated to transform an area that’s being revived due in part to its proximity to SunTrust Park and The Battery Atlanta.
Those projects weren’t without their critics, concerned about high density and traffic that’s a growing issue elsewhere in East Cobb and beyond.
Citizens fed up with years of inaction over the run-down Sprayberry Crossing Shopping Center organized a community meeting that drew many county officials, but nothing has happened despite a court order.
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
The Cobb Board of Commissioners Tuesday voted to hold a proposal for a senior living community on Holly Springs Road until February.
The applicant, Loyd Development Services, wants to build 16 single-family homes on 4.3 acres on the east side of Holly Springs, just below the roundabout at Davis Road.
The Cobb Planning Commission voted earlier this month to deny the request for RSL (residential senior living) zoning, saying it was too dense and a category not compatible with nearby residences.
Commissioner JoAnn Birrell concurred, and made a motion to hold the case until February, suggesting an R-15 (single-family) category that would meet the 2.5-home-per-acre recommendation by the county zoning staff.
“You can still have the buffers that they’re asking for and address the drainage a little better,” she said.
The land is zoned R-20 with two existing homes, and is part of the Margaret A. Keheley Living Trust.
A resident in the nearby Ashmore community supported the plan, but others were opposed, pointing to density concerns and the fact that the nearest RSL developments are in busier commercial areas.
The proposal would call for 3.7 homes per acre, while a nearby subdivision has homes on around three-quarters of an acre.
Another major East Cobb case on the commissioners’ agenda Tuesday also was delayed.
Mt. Bethel Christian Academy is proposing to build an athletic stadium on its upper school campus on Post Oak Tritt Road, and at the meeting asked for a continuance until February.
Residents in the adjacent Holly Springs subdivision have objected to the proposal, which would include lighting and permanent seating that were restricted when Mt. Bethel obtained the initial land use permit for the 33-arce property in 2013.
Jim Ney, the Mt. Bethel attorney, told commissioners the school has had “a wonderful opportunity to meet with the neighbors” and said discussions will be continuing.
Commissioners denied another residential zoning case in the Northeast Cobb area in a request that was previously withdrawn.
Richard Duncan was seeking an R-12 category for 3.1 acres on Cajun Drive and Piedmont Road to build six homes, refiling his application after initially wanting eight homes.
But Birrell said the revised plan was still incompatible for the area. There was some discussion about holding the case, but Duncan didn’t want to wait until February.
His property changes from the current medium-density residential category under the county’s comprehensive land use plan to low-density status in January.
Before presenting his case, Duncan indicated he was reserving his right to issue a constitutional challenge regarding the use of his property.
The vote against his application was 4-1, with outgoing commissioner Bob Weatherford voting against.
Cobb doesn’t hear zoning cases in January.
Get Our Free E-Mail Newsletter!
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
When Mt. Bethel Christian Academy got approval from Cobb commissioners to open a high school campus on Post Oak Tritt Road in 2013, one of the restrictions pertained to the development of an athletic stadium on the back of the 33-acre property.
The special land use permit granted to the school prohibited any field from having lights and permanent seating. Four years after the school opened, Mt. Bethel wants to remove that stipulation in a site plan amendment that’s on the Cobb Board of Commissioners zoning hearing agenda Tuesday.
UPDATED: We understand this case is being delayed until February and are seeking confirmation.
The Mt. Bethel application seeks permission to amend the site plan “to develop a multipurpose field with lighting and permanent seating for a competitive high school.”
The proposal also calls for a reconfiguration of other buildings on the campus to “create a more efficient layout,” with most of the buildings clustered in the interior of the property. The proposed revision also calls for 32 additional parking spaces on campus.
Mt. Bethel isn’t asking to increase an anticipated maximum enrollment of around 450 students (currently 150 students attend grades 9-12). The school currently has a footprint of 230,700 square feet of classroom, activities, recreational and other space.
The proposed site plan revision is shown at the top, and the full agenda item can be found by clicking here. The file also contains details of the 2013 special land use permit process and correspondence.
Nearby residents have been urging their neighbors to write to commissioners in opposition to the stadium. Here’s a letter a resident of the Holly Spring subdivision sent to us:
Mt. Bethel purchased the land, located near the northwest corner of Post Oak Tritt and Holly Springs Road from the Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta, which operated a preschool and camps on the site of the former Shirley Blumenthal Park.
In a letter to Cobb Zoning staff from Mt. Bethel’s attorneys dated Nov. 12, the school explained its plans to develop a field that would be used for soccer, lacrosse, track and other high sports competitions. The revised site plan request also includes room for a 9,400-square foot fieldhouse.
Currently Mt. Bethel has high school boys and girls soccer, high school coed track and field and boys and girls lacrosse at the middle school level.
Some Mt. Bethel teams complete at the academy’s 44-acre lower school campus on Lower Roswell Road.
In the letter to Cobb zoning staff, Mt. Bethel attorneys Jim Ney and Ryan Pulley said that their client “does not foresee any harm to come to the neighboring properties and will take great efforts to ensure that the multipurpose field will be a reasonable and a non-injurious addition.”
Mt. Bethel says in the letter it will present details of a light study it is conducting at Tuesday’s meeting, and will maintain all current setbacks and an 85-foot buffer from surrounding properties.
We’ve left word with Mt. Bethel attorneys for more details and will update when we hear back.
Mt. Bethel got approval last year to amend the high school site plan to permit a temporarily modular classroom.
Get Our Free E-Mail Newsletter!
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
A proposed single-family subdivision for seniors near the Holly Springs-Davis roundabout got a recommendation of denial Tuesday by the Cobb Planning Commission.
The board voted 4-0 against a proposal by Loyd Development to get a residential senior living (RSL) designation to build 16 free-standing homes on 4.3 acres near the southeast intersection of the roundabout.
The land, currently zoned R-20 (single-family residential) is part of the Margaret A. Keheley Living Trust, and two homes are currently located there.
The developer wants to build homes between 2,000 and 2,500 square feet with a cost range between $550,000 and $600,000, according to Garvis Sams, a zoning attorney representing the applicant. The buyers would be age-restricted, from 55 years old and up.
The density would be 3.7 homes an acre, but Cobb zoning staff recommended a reduction to 10 homes, or 2.5 an acre, closer to nearby neighborhoods that have a density of 2.3 homes an acre.
The county’s future land-use map calls for the property to remain low-density residential. All other neighborhoods in the vicinity are zoned R-20 or R-15.
Loyd also is seeking a reduction of the minimum 15 feet between homes to 10 feet, and reducing the side setback distance to five feet.
Some residents of the Ashmore subdivision supported the application, but others spoke out against it.
Randy Shaw of the Hudson Pond subdivision said Holly Springs traffic in that area during the day “is a nightmare” and that placing a new neighborhood so close to the roundabout “is going to add to the problem.”
“This is just not a good access point,” he said.
Amy Diaz of Cobb DOT said her agency believes the proposed subdivision entry on Holly Springs is far enough away from the roundabout to minimize those concerns.
Patrick Burns, a resident of Chestnut Oaks, said such a high-density development is incompatible with the community and will have a major impact on traffic.
“This will not be neighborhood we know and love” if it is built, he added.
Charles Sprayberry of the Cobb County School District also expressed the district’s concerns about the RSL category because of the county’s senior property tax exemption.
Cobb DOT estimates that nearly 12,000 cars use Holly Springs Road in the roundabout area daily, and nearly 4,000 travel along Davis Road in that vicinity, for D and C levels of service, respectively.
However, those are estimates from 2011, before the roundabout was built.
Planning Commission chairwoman Judy Williams, whose District 3 includes the Keheley land, said while she generally likes RSL zoning, “this RSL almost looks like a density grab to me.”
She said she preferred R-12 (another low-density single-family use), but “there is no plan before me.”
Williams said she’d like to see the developer to continue to work with the community to revise the proposal.
The planning board’s vote is advisory; the Cobb Board of Commissioners is scheduled to take action Dec. 18.
Get Our Free E-Mail Newsletter!
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go
Earlier this spring we reported from an open house (photo above) designed to gain citizen input for future land use and development possibilities in the Johnson Ferry-Shallowford community of East Cobb.
Also known as JOSH, the master plan project is being led by officials from several Cobb government agencies, including community development, parks and recreation, transportation and stormwater management.
Part of the process has included asking citizens to fill out an image preference survey of potential future buildings, and some people balked at the choices as too dense and not in keeping with the community surroundings (including the multi-family housing example offered below)
The Cobb Community Development office was asked to redo the design guidelines at the request of commissioner Bob Ott, whose District 2 now includes the JOSH area.
The JOSH study is similar to other corridor master plan projects in his district, including Johnson Ferry (between Roswell and Lower Roswell), Powers Ferry and Vinings.
Now the community development office is getting out word it’s holding some more public meetings after the first of the year.
According to comprehensive planner Phillip Westbrook, three meetings will be held “to refamiliarize everyone with the JOSH study and provide more opportunities for additional feedback.”
The specific dates haven’t been announced, but are being tentatively planned for January, February and March.
The master plan concept that is developed from the JOSH meetings will be incorporated into the Cobb 2040 Comprehensive Plan.
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
The teardown of the old Mountain View Elementary School is almost complete, and the construction signs around what’s left of it are hinting at what’s to come in what’s being called the Sandy Plains Marketplace mixed-use development.
The Atlanta retail site ToNeTois reporting that other tenants include several restaurants with growing presences in the metro area, including a Bad Daddy’s Burger Bar and MOD Pizza.
Food joints also include First Watch and Jim ‘N Nick’s Bar-B-Q and there’s going to be another Hollywood Feed, a boutique pet supply retailer, which also opened in East Cobb in January at Woodlawn Square.
Fuqua, which is the developer of The Battery Atlanta, developed a concept similar to the Sandy Plains Marketplace called the Kennesaw Marketplace. That’s recently opened and is anchored by a Whole Foods Market (prompting the closure of Harry’s on Roswell Road this time a year ago).
Last October Cobb commissioners gave the greenlight to rezoning the former Mountain View school grounds, on nearly 14 acres. Fuqua and East Cobb-based Brooks Chadwick Capital LLC also had to come back to the commission to get approval for a self-storage facilitynear the back of the property that was opposed by some residents of the adjacent Hunters Lodge neighborhood.
Grand opening
Flooring Atlanta has moved into East Cobb at 2214 Roswell Road, and is having a grand opening celebration Saturday from 11-3. There will be free food and drinks in addition to music, including a live Mariachi performance at 1.
Flooring Atlanta, the new name for what had been Carpet Surplus, also has showrooms in Kennesaw, Roswell and Norcross.
Business of the Year
The East Cobb Business Association has named EAST COBBER magazine its 2018 business of the year at a luncheon last week that surprised publisher Cynthia Rozzo.
She’s marking 25 years since beginning the monthly lifestyle magazine, and recently staged the 23rd EAST COBBER parade and community festival. Rozzo also will receive an ECBA Honorary Lifetime Membership.
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
A Bells Ferry Road senior living development was approved Tuesday by the Cobb Board of Commissioners, on a chunk of green space that’s been eyed for a variety of uses over the years.
They voted to rezone 35.8 acres of low-density residential land on Bells Ferry Road and North Booth Road at I-575 for 155 single-family, detached homes for seniors 55 and older. Here’s the agenda item packet.
The vote was 4-0, with commissioner Bob Ott absent.
It was one of two major zoning cases on Tuesday’s agenda that asked for the Residential Senior Living (RSL) category, which is becoming a more frequent request from developers in Cobb.
There was no formal opposition to the application by Jim Chapman Communities Inc., which had initially proposed 178 units. The homes will range between 1,600 and 2,400 square feet and will have an attached two-car garage. The request was supported by the Bells Ferry Civic Association.
District 3 commissioner JoAnn Birrell of Northeast Cobb wanted to have the case heard due to some e-mails she had received.
Before making a motion to approve the request, she noted that the land had drawn the interest of developers for other types of development, including commercial, which she opposed to due nearby residential communities.
The land is located across North Booth Road from Chalker Elementary School. She also said the property had been nominated to be purchased as county parkland, but that use was rejected.
“The applicant asked for what we wanted,” Birrell said of the Jim Chapman proposal. “RSL is the best fit for this area.”
Among the stipulations as part of the rezoning include a right turn lane to be built from Bells Ferry Road southbound onto North Booth Road, and for sidewalks to be constructed along the frontage for both roads.
Before that case, commissioners approved a similar rezoning near Powder Springs, for 123 senior homes on 53 acres on Old Lost Mountain Road, that drew opposition from nearby residents for traffic and density reasons.
Get Our Free E-Mail Newsletter!
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
One of the stipulations that was included in a revised site plan last year for the East Cobb Taqueria Tsunami restaurant was that an existing frontage sign had to go.
But the owners of the popular Asian-Latin fusion spot at 1275 Johnson Ferry Road have already attached their logo to the old round frame in front of what was the Caribou Coffee and Einstein Bros. Bagel eatery.
UPDATED: Commissioners approved the request, which was on the consent agenda.
On Tuesday they’ll be asking Cobb commissioners to amend that stipulation (agenda item packet here). It’s included in the other business portion of a zoning hearing that begins at 9 a.m. on the 2nd floor of the Cobb government building, 100 Cherokee St., in downtown Marietta.
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
A rendering of single-family homes that will be built on former Wigley Farm land.
After more than a year of delays, revised site plans and other changes, a Wigley Road rezoning case was approved Tuesday by the Cobb Board of Commissioners.
The case file was numbered Z-56 of 2017, and it was Oak Hall Companies’ project to build single-family homes on a sloping tract of land that once was part of the Wigley Farm in Northeast Cobb, just below the Cherokee County line.
Commissioners approved most of what the Cobb Planning Commission recommended earlier this month: A total of 91 homes on 96 acres. Because of the hilly topography, however, only about half of that acreage will be developed.
The rezoning request was for R-30 OSC, or low-density residential in an Open Space Community. The land has been in the estate of Audra Wigley.
There will be conservation easements and other buffers and measures to limit stormwater runoff that was a major concern, and responsible for some of the delays.
“This is the best we’re going to get,” said District 3 Cobb Commissioner JoAnn Birrell, who represents the area.
Had the developer wanted to stick with the R-30 category already in place, not only would rezoning not be required, but around 105 homes would have been allowed without any mandate for buffers or protective space.
The initial rezoning request called for 96 homes, but that was reduced to 91 by the planning commission.
The request approved Tuesday calls for a 40-foot undisturbed buffer surrounding the entire development, which Oak Hall Companies is calling Provence Estates.
The original application came in two pieces, but was combined earlier this year. The acreage is on Wigley Road and north of Summitop Road, where opposition to the rezoning emerged.
Traffic concerns also were referenced by nearby residents (a traffic impact study was done in March, and can be found here), as were stormwater issues.
Some of those citizens who had been opposed urged commissioners on Tuesday to keep their concerns in mind. Among them include erosion and runoff from areas under development, and resident Tony Garcia, a Summitop Road resident, presented photos he took of that activity.
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
By a unanimous vote Tuesday county commissioners approved an East Cobb Restaurant Row rezoning request to transform a long-existing eyesore in the Powers Ferry Road corridor.
After a lengthy discussion, which included a history of the area’s changing demographics, commissioners made few changes to the request by Powers Ferry Road Investors LLC to convert 8.8 acres to a regional retail commercial category that’s used for large mixed-use projects.
In moving to approve the request (agenda item packet here), District 2 commissioner Bob Ott included conditions that reduce the maximum number of apartment units from 290 to 280 and senior living units from 181 to 171.
The development will contain 578,885 square feet, all but 10,000 of it for residential buildings, with the rest for restaurant and retail space. The multi-family building will be six stories, and the senior building will have five stories. A 3-story parking deck and other parking on the property will provide 711 spaces.
The only business that is there now is the Rose and Crown Tavern, which is surrounded by three other empty former restaurant buildings occupied by Sal Grosso, Famous Dave’s and TGI Friday’s.
Some of them have been sitting empty for years. Ott noted that the Rose and Crown, which opened in 2013, is different because it is a bar as well.
The land is adjacent to the Wildwood office park.
Commissioner Bob Ott lives near the Restaurant Row area on Powers Ferry Road.
The restaurants did well during lunch hour because of its proximity to Wildwood, but suffered during dinner hours.
“Restaurants don’t survive,” said Ott, who lives in the nearby Terrell Mill Estates community. “It is a blighted property.”
While the Powers Ferry Corridor Alliance supported the request, some citizens living in the nearby Horizons at Wildwood condominiums were opposed, citing density, environmental, traffic and safety reasons.
Eric Meadows, a Horizons resident who has led the opposition, took issue with a claim by James Balli, an attorney for the applicant, that there aren’t any hazards to citizens walking along Windy Ridge Parkway.
As he stated at a Cobb Planning Commission hearing earlier this month, a resident was struck walking his dog on the road, which surrounds the back of the Restaurant Row land, and went to the hospital
“Does it take us for someone to be killed before we do something?” Meadows said.
The Rose and Crown Tavern is slated to become part of the new development on Restaurant Row.
Ott said the Restaurant Row property has been eyed by potential developers for more than two years. Located at Powers Ferry and Windy Hill Road, it once was seen as the nucleus of the corridor.
Another key change over the years has been the string of apartment complexes in the corridor. Many of them were built as adult-only, but were forced to open their doors to families after a court ruling in the 1970s.
That affected nearby schools in the Wheeler cluster, especially Brumby Elementary, but also things like restaurant patronage.
Another condition for the rezoning is for future residents to be notified in their least agreements of potential noise issues, since the area is in the flight path of nearby Dobbins Air Reserve Base.
Get Our Free E-Mail Newsletter!
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
Rendering of a proposed 290-unit apartment complex on Powers Ferry Road at Windy Ridge Parkway, where the vacant TGI Friday’s building sits.
Just a quick final glance at items we’ve tracked previously that are on Tuesday’s Cobb Board of Commissioners zoning hearing (agenda summary here), which includes the East Cobb Restaurant Row and Wigley Road applications, with information updated as of Friday:
Here is additional correspondence posted Friday, including a revised stipulation letter from Garvis Sams, attorney for Powers Ferry Investors LLC, the applicant, on Thursday, and a letter from Sheldon Schlegman, an architect with a practice nearby on Windy Ridge Parkway and a resident of the adjacent Horizons condominium building and who is against the application as presented.
“I am curious as to how the Cobb DOT plans on addressing the appalling outrageous increase in congestion, not withstanding the [MarketPlace] Development.”
Another Powers Ferry Road case, in fact just across the street from the Restaurant Row tract, also is on the docket. Here are the file details for the Chance Powers Ferry application to tear down the old Powers Ferry Woods office park for a mixed-use project on less than four acres, with 300 multi-family housing units and office space. The planning board also recommended that delayed request for approval.
The Cobb BOC zoning hearing starts at 9 a.m. Tuesday in the 2nd floor boardroom of the Cobb government building, 100 Cherokee St., in downtown Marietta.
Get Our Free E-Mail Newsletter!
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
Earlier today a coalition of residents from Wildwood, the Powers Ferry area, the Cumberland Improvement District and Cobb County, GA came together to launch a petition that opposes the redevelopment of Z-47 2018, or Restaurant Row because it is not good for Cobb County, the Community or the Chattahoochee River.
The petition is titled:
Z-47 is Not Good for Cobb County, the Community or the Chattahoochee
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
Cobb commissioners spent $1.7 million this year to buy Ebenezer Road property for a future passive park. (East Cobb News photos by Wendy Parker)
Last week a national organization that examines municipal and local governance concerns published a series of posts about Cobb County growth issues, especially in the years since the recession.
The organization is called Strong Towns, which I have not heard of before. It describes itself as a non-profit media organization that’s based in Brainerd, Minn., a small town with a population of 13,000 or so, not close to a metropolitan area.
On Tuesdays I like to focus on local government, since that’s when many Cobb Board of Commissioners meetings take place. Today’s meeting has been cancelled, and I thought I’d delve a little into this interesting, but flawed examination.
The five-part Strong Towns report, which has gotten some chatter on Cobb citizens social media groups, refers to Cobb as “a suburban region that epitomizes the folly of going into debt to build more and more infrastructure with no ability to pay for it.”
Condominiums along Powers Ferry Road are part of a high-density community spreading out from SunTrust Park.
While that’s certainly how many locals around here feel about what’s happening in the county, I think the premise is faulty, and I’m skeptical of some of the claims made in this report.
Strong Towns misses one of the biggest points of all: Cobb remains a very attractive magnet for jobs because of its diversified economy and a well-educated workforce, the partial byproduct of another major attraction here, excellent public schools.
Cobb isn’t as “addicted to growth,” as the initial post is titled, as much as new residents and employers are continuously drawn by quality services and low taxes. A heavy pipeline of development bottled up during the lean years of the recession is taking shape.
These realities were not examined by Strong Towns, but I will link to all the posts in this series so you can read for yourself:
In an evergreen post elsewhere on its site, Strong Towns claims that many cities and counties in America are falling for a “Growth Ponzi Scheme,” which it further asserts as “the dominant model of suburban growth since the mid-20th century.”
The final post about Cobb started off with a reference to Bernie Madoff, who’s serving prison time for defrauding investors.
Really? To try to make a link between criminal behavior and the development and financial issues of a bustling suburban county, albeit one with major budget problems, borders on being irresponsible, as well as willfully misunderstanding.
Cobb commissioners this spring adopted the long-delayed Johnson Ferry Urban Design Guidelines to guide future growth in the busy commercial corridor.
I will always detest the Atlanta Braves stadium deal because the process was a total sham. But that doesn’t explain the county’s budget, tax and spending issues, which go back many years.
The county wasn’t chasing growth as much as it wasn’t sufficiently funding the growth that was already here or on the way, or was having trouble keeping up with the pace of the growth.
(Here’s a good example: When our family moved to East Cobb in the early 1970s, our home was still on septic tank, with the Sope Creek sewer line still under construction.)
There is an anti-suburban sentiment behind this report, and this is the biggest problem with it:
“Much of Cobb County . . . feels like nowhere. It has no center of gravity. It has no thriving urban core to serve as a tax-revenue cash cow.”
A citizen living near a proposed townhome community near Olde Town Athletic Club demonstrated to county commissioners this spring the building heights that were part of the initial plan.
Ironically, the area around SunTrust may prove to be just such a place. Cobb does have many misplaced priorities, symbolized by the Braves deal, and which I wrote not long ago stripped away the illusion of supposedly fiscally conservative government.
Instead of really trying to understand the unique challenges facing a Sunbelt community that has gone from mostly rural to suburban and now urban in many spots, and in about a half-century or so, Strong Towns wants Cobb to be more like Brainerd, I guess (a place where I’ve never been).
From what I’ve read about this organization, it wants every place to be like small-town America, with bucolic downtown cores, pedestrian-friendly shops and restaurants and adaptable to a “traditional development pattern.”
While that sentiment does have some conservative support, and it’s appealing to me as I continue on in middle age, it has never really come about in Cobb, for better or for worse.
It’s a nice ideal, but it doesn’t offer any practical solutions. Strong Towns produced a lot of words about Cobb County but with little real local knowledge on the ground about its subject.
That matters.
Get Our Free E-Mail Newsletter!
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
A rendering of a home in the proposed Provence Estates subdivision on Wigley Road.
After more than a year of delays, the Cobb Planning Commission Tuesday recommended approval of a Wigley Road rezoning case that would convert hilly, rocky former farm terrain into a single-family subdivision.
The commission vote was 4-1 in favor of an application by Oak Hall Companies for single-family homes on 96 acres on what once was the Wigley family farm. The land abuts the Cherokee County line to the north, and is north of Sweat Mountain, Jamerson Road and Summitop Road.
The planning board initially heard the case in May but placed a 60-day hold on the application, which was once again delayed in July.
The developer wanted to build 95 homes for a community to be called Provence Estates, but the commissioners recommended 91 instead. Parks Huff, an attorney for Oak Hall, noted the rarity of a proposal for single-family homes that is around one to an acre.
Since the planning board recommended the R-30 OSC category, roughly half the tract would be placed in a conservation easement.
The land is from the estate of Audra Mae Wigley and was part of the Wigley Farm in Northeast Cobb. Initially, the Oak Hall application was for 55 acres, but both pieces of the former farm property were put together in a single request earlier this year.
Some neighbors were opposed for traffic as well as for stormwater runoff issues, and it was a factor outgoing planning commissioner Thea Powell cited for her vote against the request.
The Cobb Board of Commissioners will have the final say on the rezoning request on Aug. 21.
Get Our Free E-Mail Newsletter!
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
The Rose and Crown Tavern is the only existing business on “Restaurant Row” on Powers Ferry Road. (East Cobb News photos by Wendy Parker)
A rezoning to allow a Powers Ferry Restaurant Row project that would raze mostly empty commercial property was recommended for approval Tuesday by the Cobb Planning Commission.
The board voted 4-1 to recommend a request by Powers Ferry Road Investors, LLC, to rezone 8.8 acres to regional retail commercial (RRC) from the current general commercial (GC) category.
Most of the land includes vacant restaurant space, with the exception of the Rose and Crown Tavern at 1931 Powers Ferry Road. The rezoning plans call for that restaurant to be part of the multi-use complex, which would include 290 apartments and 181 senior living units.
Rose and Crown would be expanded from 4,400 square feet to 6,000 square feet in a 10,000-square-foot restaurant/retail building.
“It stays and it gets better,” said Marietta zoning attorney James Balli, who represents the applicant.
The land along Powers Ferry sits between Windy Hill Road and Windy Ridge Parkway and is next to the Wildwood Office Park.
Window signage for the long-departed Famous Dave’s restaurant remains.
Three other free-standing buildings have been empty for years, and once housed the Sal Grosso, TGI Friday’s and Famous Dave’s restaurants.
Balli told the planning board that under the current GC category, the land could be used for adult entertainment businesses, nightclubs, tattoo parlors and even a homeless shelter.
While some nearby residents support redeveloping the property, they objected to the parking density and were upset that no crash data information was provided in the application.
The developer is calling for 711 total parking spaces for the development, far less than the minimum of 783 required by the county code.
Balli said that by comparison, the adjoining Horizons at Wildwood, an 18-story condominium complex, has 442 spaces for 273 units.
Eric Meadows, who lives in the Horizons, said his building has 454 parking spaces (two under code), for a ratio of 1.82, and calculated that the Restaurant Row parking density would come to 1.38 spaces per each apartment unit and 1.08 for the senior building.
The Horizons at Wildwood condos overlook Restaurant Row.
“That’s unacceptable,” Meadows said. “I do not believe it’s a suitable solution.”
He also objected to the front and rear setbacks being reduced from the minimum 50 feet to 15 feet, saying there’s nothing else like that around Wildwood.
Meadows also said Horizons residents and their pets have come close to being hit by cars while walking along Windy Ridge Parkway.
Planning commissioner Andy Smith of East Cobb, who represents District 2, supported the application and requested that a stipulation be included for crash data figures to be prepared when the Cobb Board of Commissioners takes up the request Aug. 21.
“This is head and shoulders above anything I’ve seen for this proposed site,” Smith said.
The only opposing vote came from Thea Powell of East Cobb, and it was her final vote. She said she was being replaced by commission chairman Mike Boyce for publicly opposing his property tax increase.
Get Our Free E-Mail Newsletter!
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
Cobb Planning Commissioner Thea Powell, who said she was being replaced by Cobb Commission Chairman Mike Boyce, offered some remarks Tuesday morning before her last meeting.
An East Cobb resident who also served twice on the Cobb Board of Commissioners, said she received a letter from Boyce on July 26 notifying her of her termination, effective at the end of August.
She said Boyce had never expressed to her any disagreements about her votes on zoning issues, and said no reason was given for her firing. Powell noted that the letter came not long after she spoke out as a citizen against his proposed property tax increase.
In her comments, Powell made references to freedom of speech, saying that “no government should have the arrogance to believe that it alone knows what is in the best interest of its citizens.”
She thanked her colleagues on the five-member Planning Commission, who are appointed by county commissioners, and urged them “to continue to listen to all who come before” them.
She also thanked the county zoning staff and citizens and said “you have and will continue to make a difference.”
At the last public hearing before the budget was adopted, on Aug. 17, Powell referred to budget presentation information supporting a tax increase “a dog’s breakfast.”
She said that in spite of a 1.7-mills increase in the general fund that Boyce had sought in a record tax digest year, the county was spending more money than it had, and feared there may a repeat of the same situation next year.
Powell has a long history of public and civic service in Cobb County, starting with the East Cobb Civic Association. She served as a commissioner from Northeast Cobb’s District 3 from 1988-91 and also on an interim basis in the same post in 2010 when Tim Lee resigned to run for chairman.
Powell served on the Cobb Development Authority after being appointed by East Cobb Commissioner Bob Ott. In 2011, he tried having her appointed to the Cobb Citizens’ Oversight Committee.
At the time, there was speculation that she might run against Lee in 2012 (she did not), and her nomination was thwarted by the commissioners. Ott later hired her as his full-time staff assistant.
Powell also was appointed by Cobb Board of Education member David Chastain to serve on the school district’s Facilities and Technology advisory board. In 2016, she was a campaign adviser to Boyce in 2016, when he upended Lee.
After he took office, Boyce appointed her to the planning commission. Powell said Tuesday she looks forward to “having the opportunity to use my freedom of speech unencumbered.”
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
A rendering of a proposed six-story, 290-unit apartment building that would occupy long-vacant restaurant space on Powers Ferry Road.
Here’s an update to the Powers Ferry Restaurant Row project proposal we posted about on Friday, which are plans to redevelop 8.8 acres of mostly empty eatery space for a very dense, mostly rental residential complex with some retail, and that’s getting an initial hearing Tuesday before the Cobb Planning Commission:
Powers Ferry Road Investors, LLC, the developer, has provided revised and conceptual landscaping plans and its attorney, James Balli, has filed a stipulation letter (you can read the whole thing here) that would increase the proposed parking from 510 spaces to 711 spaces.
The parking situation was among the concerns expressed by the Cobb Zoning Office analysis, which recommends approval of the nearly 500,000-square foot mixed-use project to regional retail commercial (RRC).
The 471 apartment units (290 multi-family, 181 senior active adult living) are still proposed, with the former (see rendering at top) taking up six stories, and the latter (see below) encompassing a five-story building.
The 10,000 square feet of mostly restaurant and retail space is still proposed for the center of the property, and would include the expansion of the current Rose and Crown Tavern from 4,400 to 6,000 square feet.
Most of the apartments will be studio, or one-bedroom units, and some will have two bedrooms.
The proposed 181-unit senior living building adjacent to the Sage Woodfire Tavern on Powers Ferry Road.
The Powers Ferry Corridor Alliance, a civic group, has filed a response to the proposal, and has expressed concern over a growing and overwhelming trend in the area toward rental housing.
While eager for “Restaurant Row” redevelopment, the group suggested a moratorium for more apartment construction: “Is there REALLY no market at all for owner-occupied units in a truly mixed-use development that could go on this site?”
The citizens group noted the development would be located next to a premium condominium high-rise complex on Powers Ferry.
The PFCA was strongly in support of the MarketPlace Terrell Mill project approved earlier this year that includes 298 apartments. But the group has estimated that since 2015, a total of 1,152 apartment units have been approved for the corridor, as opposed to only 155 owner-occupied dwellings.
If the Restaurant Row project is approved as presented, that would add up to 1,623 rental units, a ratio of 10.43 multi-family units to one owner-occupied unit.
A conceptual landscaping plan filed by the developer and that was submitted on Thursday.
The PFCA also wants to see the development reconfigured to include more retail, since more than half of the proposed space for that part of the project would be taken up by Rose and Crown, an existing business.
The civic group also has made numerous landscaping, parking, lighting and walkability suggestions: “The residents of each building should not have to exit from the parking lot or parking garage to go to the restaurant or out to the street at Powers Ferry Road. There should be attractively lit and maintained footpaths going from the buildings to the sidewalk on Powers Ferry Road.”
Get Our Free E-Mail Newsletter!
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
Plans call to demolish four restaurant buildings on Powers Ferry Road for a nearly 500,000 square-foot, mostly residential complex near Wildwood Office Park, in upper right. (From Cobb Zoning Office case file.)
A proposed Powers Ferry Road development that would include nearly 500 residential units and restaurant and retail space comes before the Cobb Planning Commission Tuesday.
The rezoning request by Powers Ferry Road Investors, LLC, would raze a string of vacant restaurants and build 291 apartment units and 181 upscale senior active dwellings in between a 10,000-foot restaurant building, according to a filing with the Cobb Zoning Office (agenda packet item here).
The project would include three buildings totaling 438,555 feet near the Wildwood Office Park.
The 8.8 acres along Powers Ferry between Windy Hill Road and Windy Ridge Parkway currently houses only one active business, the Rose & Crown Tavern, which will remain and be “enlarged” in the new development, according to a zoning impact statement included in the case file.
Surrounding it are empty restaurant spaces that were once Sal Grosso, Famous Dave’s and TGI Friday’s. The Sage Woodfire Tavern location that opened last fall in the former Houston’s space on the corner of Powers Ferry and Windy Ridge Parkway is not part of the development.
The site plan calls for a senior living complex on the left, with a large apartment building at the right. The office/retail/restaurant space is slated for the center building. (From Cobb Zoning Office case file.)
(Earlier this week, Sage Woodfire Tavern filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, but no announcements have been made on possible restaurant closings.)
The Cobb Zoning staff is recommending approval of the request to rezone the land with conditions from general commercial (GC) to regional retail commercial (RRC), which is recommended for large developments of 500,000 square feet or more.
The future land use plan calls for regional activity center (RAC).
The developer has included three variance requests that would reduce the front and a side setback from the minimum 50 to 15 feet, and reduce a recommendation of 859 parking spaces to 510.
The Cobb Zoning Staff analysis said while the requested zoning category is compatible with the area, the six-story heights are taller than nearby buildings. The staff also does “not support the reduction of the required parking spaces.”
The cases are the latest major redevelopment projects slated for the Powers Ferry corridor since the opening of SunTrust PArk, and follow the MarketPlace Terrell Mill rezoning approved earlier this year.
The meeting begins at 9 a.m. Tuesday in the second floor board room of the Cobb government building, 100 Cherokee St., in downtown Marietta.
Get Our Free E-Mail Newsletter!
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
There was no opposition Tuesday to a Powers Ferry Road corridor rezoning request for a major mixed-use development. But the Cobb Planning Commission put the application on hold for a month to sort out some issues some members had with the project.
The request by Chance Powers Ferry LLC would redevelop the aging Powers Ferry Woods office complex on Shadowood Parkway, near Powers Ferry Road and Windy Ridge Parkway, for an office building and 300 luxury apartment units (here’s the agenda item packet) totalling more than 578,000 square feet.
The 3.6-acre tract is currently zoned O & I; Chance Powers Ferry is seeking RRC (regional retail commercial) designation for the high-density project. The land is surrounded by multi-family housing, and Kevin Moore, an attorney for Chance Powers Ferry, calls the proposal suitable for “a true urban context. . . This is what it’s intended for.”
The site plan calls for the 30,000-square-foot office building to be in the front of the property (in orange below), with the apartment building (in pink) wrapped around a parking deck.
The office building would be three stories high, and the apartment building six stories high.
Among the concerns expressed by planning board members were about some of the variances, including a proposed reduction in front, side and rear setbacks from 50 to 15, 10 and 18 feet, respectively.
Another variance would reduce the number of proposed parking spaces from a required minimum of 631 to 515. Chance Powers Ferry also wants to reduce the landscaping buffer next to another apartment community from the minimum of 50 feet to 10 feet.
“I do like the project, I like the concept,” Planning Commission chairwoman Judy Williams said before suggesting that the request be delayed until August. A motion to hold passed 4-0, with commission member Thea Powell absent.
Not far away, another proposed RRC development was placed on hold by Cobb Zoning Office, which has recommended denial, and it’s been held up before. A request by Elevation Development Group LLC would rezone 12.7 acres on Water Place at Terrell Mill Road and across from Water Village Drive from its current O & I status.
The developer wants to build retail and office space and the Terrell Mill Park Apartments, and is seeking a reduction in required parking spaces from 579 to 468.
The project is in close proximity to the Dobbins Air Reserve Base, which is in opposition due to what it calls an “aviation hazard.” Zoning staff has said it’s concerned about noise and buffer requirements on adjacent properties.
A long-delayed Northeast Cobb zoning case was delayed again on Tuesday. The Cobb Zoning Office has continued a rezoning request for a 92-unit single-family subdivision on 96 acres on Wigley Road until August.
It had been held since May, when the Planning Commission heard a number of concerns about density, traffic, stormwater runoff and the land’s hilly topography.
Also continued was a request for a senior living facility on 35 acres on Bells Ferry Road and North Booth Road near I-575, to September. It’s currently undeveloped single-family residential land. The developer, Jim Chapman Communities, wants to build 178 units.
Get Our Free E-Mail Newsletter!
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
Duncan Land Investements’ 3-home rezoning case on Wesley Chapel Road got Cobb commissioners’ approval by a 3-2 vote.
On paper, considering a 3-home subdivision proposal might seem fairly routine. On Tuesday, the Cobb Board of Commissioners did do that, but the Wesley Chapel Road rezoning case they approved came after a good bit of wrangling.
By a 3-2 vote, the commissioners approved a substitute motion to rezone less than two acres on Wesley Chapel next to Garrison Mill Elementary School and across from Loch Highland Parkway to R-20 for a three-home development.
The substitute motion by commissioner Bob Weatherford stripped out a stipulation that would have reverted the property to an R-30 category (with a limit of only two homes) if the developer didn’t obtain a building permit within six months.
The tract was rezoned to R-20 in 2013 (here’s the zoning agenda item packet information). The land reverted back to R-30 because there was a clause that kicked in since the property had not been developed after five years.
Duncan Land Investments, which has an additional contract on the property, sought in its renewed application R-15, which would have allowed four homes. Although it was revised it to R-20, the Cobb Planning Commission made no recommendation.
District 3 commissioner JoAnn Birrell, who represents the area, wanted a six-month reversionary clause for the new application because that is “ample time for him to close on the property and pull the permit.”
But Weatherford said he was “having trouble finding any logic” in rezoning the same piece of property the same category twice.
“If you want it R-30, leave it R-30. If you want it R-20, zone it R-20,” he said. “This will be the second time it’s R-20. Why go back to R-30? It just makes no sense to me unless I’m missing something somewhere.”
East Cobb commissioner Bob Ott said that a “reversion clause resets the map,” and that “once the board has rezoned something, it sets a precedent” that can be used elsewhere.
Weatherford responded that “every zoning case stands on it own.” Commission chairman Mike Boyce and commissioner Lisa Cupid voted with him on the substitute motion.
Birrell was against the substitute motion as was Ott, who said he was opposed to the R-20 request altogether. His District 2, redrawn since the 2013 case, now includes the east side of Wesley Chapel Road across from the Duncan property.
He said in the five years since the first rezoning, the area has become more built-up and cited more traffic along Wesley Chapel and surrounding development that’s zoned R-30 for his opposition.
“I cannot support changing from R-30,” Ott said.
The commissioners also voted 5-0 to approve rezoning for a Kroger gas station in East Cobb. Kroger’s request at the Pavilions at East Lake Shopping Center changed the zoning from Neighborhood Shopping to Community Retail Center with some conditions (see previous ECNpost here).
Kroger is planning to demolish a 10,000-square foot building on 14 acres of the shopping center for the gas station, which will be open from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. seven days a week.
Get Our Free E-Mail Newsletter!
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
