The demo begins at 1 p.m., and the Sprayberry Crossing Action Facebook group has provided some details and the above map.
You can enter Sprayberry Crossing at three points, but keep in mind that there is fencing around the retail center.
What you can’t do is park in the parking areas around nearby businesses and the Parker Chase School.
Shane Spink of Sprayberry Crossing Action said that the school will be towing vehicles that are parked illegally.
You also cannot gain access behind the back driveway of the Zaxby’s at Sandy Plains Road at Post Oak Tritt Road.
The entry points will be on Sandy Plains between the Sprayberry Bottle Shop and the former SunTrust Bank, on East Piedmont next to the Walgreen’s and on East Piedmont at the Tiny Stitches.
The Bruno’s portion of the property will be redeveloped for townhomes, with retail in the middle and a senior apartment building constructed on the portion of the land nearest East Piedmont.
Townhomes also will be built next to the senior building, behind the retail space and fronting the Mayes Family Cemetery that will remain protected.
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Cobb commissioner JoAnn Birrell got in touch to let us know a few more details of the start of the demolition of the Sprayberry Crossing Shopping Center.
Birrell said that process will start at 1 p.m. and that the public is invited.
Joe Glancy of the Sprayberry Crossing Action Facebook group that’s been pushing for redevelopment of the blighted retail center posted on Wednesday that fencing is starting to go up around the property that will become a mixed-use development.
“Cut throughs connecting Post Oak Tritt to East Piedmont will no longer be possible,” he said.
Construction on a project to include senior apartments, townhomes and some retail is expected to begin in August.
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The Merchants Walk Chevron station building before it was demolished in 2021.
What had been the site of a longstanding Chevron gas station at one of East Cobb’s busiest intersections may soon house an oil change business.
Valvoline Instant Oil Change has requested a site plan revision from the Cobb Board of Commissioners to develop the acre lot for a 2,088-square-foot oil facility.
Filings with the zoning office indicate the facility will have three bays and will have right-in and right-out access only on Roswell Road (see rendering at the bottom).
There also will be landscaping a trash enclosure and 15 parking spaces.
Since rezoning isn’t required, the application doesn’t have to go to the Cobb Planning Commission. But county commissioners must approve changes to site plans.
Commissioners approved general commercial rezoning for the property in 1999, and it’s been the site of gas stations since the early 1970s.
The Chevron station closed in late 2020, and was demolished in early 2021, not long after we stopped in and snapped the above photo.
The Valvoline filings and county property tax records indicate that the two parcels making up the 0.95 acres have a combined appraised value of $822,240.
The owner of a 0.89 acre tract in that assemblage, Ruth McLaughlin, also owns 0.71 acres directly behind it that’s valued at $1.24 million.
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After several months of delays, the Cobb Board of Commissioners this week approved a site plan change at the North campus of Mt. Bethel Christian Academy for the construction of an athletic field.
Since 2014, Mt. Bethel has operated a high school on Post Oak Tritt Road near Holly Springs Road.
The school was granted a special-land use plan the year before that, stipulating that changes must come back before commissioners. The SLUP included the future construction of an athletic field and related facilities.
In 2019 Mt. Bethel Christian proposed a sports stadium but later withdrew the application after community opposition surfaced.
The new site plan (above) was adopted on the commission’s consent calendar after the private school worked out a new list of stipulations with nearby residents of the Holly Springs subdivision and the East Cobb Civic Association.
Mt. Bethel Christian attorney Kevin Moore filed the new site plan on Tuesday and a stipulation letter on March 9 (you can read here; you can read the zoning staff analysis by clicking here).
The include relocating the parking area, removing an athletic track, creating an 85-foot undisturbed buffer between the field and nearby homes, and requiring the district commissioner (JoAnn Birrell) to approve the maximum elevations for the field.
Other provisions limit the scope of lighting and the hours for a public address and sound system to operate. The district commissioner also would approve a final landscaping plan with community and ECCA reviews.
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Bye bye, Bruno’s: The first Sprayberry Crossing building to be demolished will be the former grocery store.
A date many in the vicinity of the Sprayberry Crossing Shopping Center have been anticipating for years will soon come to pass.
On April 11, the first phase of the demolition of the blighted retail center begins, starting with the former Bruno’s grocery store.
What has been a community eyesore for more than two decades will be giving way to a mixed use development of senior apartments, townhomes and some retail and restaurant space.
Atlantic Realty Acquisitions LLC got rezoning last June from Cobb commissioners to redevelop Sprayberry Crossing, and existing businesses began relocating at the start of 2022.
The parcels making up the assemblage were sold in December to East Cobb Venture Partners, LLC, a holding company formed last October, for nearly $13 million.
He said the area will be fenced off by the end of March, with openings for independent businesses fronting Sandy Plains Road.
But you won’t be able to cut through the backside of the property between East Piedmont Road and Post Oak Tritt Road.
Glancy said asbestos removal also is continuing through March, and a pest control company has installed around 200 rodent traps for the demolition process.
There also could be some Cobb fire and police training at the old structures.
Construction is expected to begin in August and should take around 18 months, Glancy said, and family members of the Mayes Family Cemetery will have access.
He said he doesn’t know yet whether the public will be invited to watch the demolition begin, “but I know many of us can’t wait and would like to be on site to witness it. I’d bring my own sledgehammer if they’d let me.”
He also posted the fencing map outlined below in red.
Once developed, the new Sprayberry Crossing will have 132 senior apartments and 102 townhomes and retail and restaurant space. The cemetery also will remain intact.
But plans for an anchor 34,000-square-foot Lidl grocery store were scuttled when the developer couldn’t come to a traffic agreement with the Sprayberry Bottle Shop, located across from the intersection of Sandy Plains Road and Kinjac Drive.
That’s where Cobb DOT recommended the main entrance to the new development, since there’s a traffic signal there now.
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The focus will be on District 2, which includes a part of East Cobb, and is scheduled for 6-8 p.m.
You can view the meeting by clicking here; the meeting number is 2308 013 1067. Participants can also call in toll free at 415-655-0003, with the same access code. 2308 013 1067
Four meetings have been scheduled, and will culminate with an in-person open house on April 14, at a location and time to be announced.
Every five years the state requires local governments to update their long-term planning priorities. The last update in Cobb was in 2017 (you can read it here).
The update covers a wide range of planning topics, including land use, transportation, housing, economic development, community facilities, human services, public health, education, natural and historic resources, public safety, intergovernment coordination, disaster resilience, military compatibility and place-making.
For more information on the Comprehensive Plan update, click here.
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The private school, associated with Mt. Bethel United Methodist Church, was to have come back in February with revisions for its plans to upgrade athletic facilities.
But Kevin Moore, Mt. Bethel’s attorney, has requested a continuance to March. In a letter sent Tuesday to the Cobb Zoning Office, Moore said his clients need an additional month to continue working on site plan changes “in response to comments from the community.”
Nearby residents and the East Cobb Civic Association have expressed opposition to the proposed changes that would relocate a field house and add add 39 parking spaces for a total of 121.
They complained that the process is rushed, and that the athletic facilities would be placed too close to their property.
Mt. Bethel’s high school campus is located on 33.4 acres on Post Oak Tritt, near the intersection of Holly Springs Road, while the K-8 students attend classes on the main Mt. Bethel campus on Lower Roswell Road.
The full agenda for Tuesday’s hearing can be found here; it will take place at 9 a.m. in the second floor board room of the Cobb government building (100 Cherokee St., downtown Marietta).
The meeting is taking place in-person but there is an option to participate virtually. More details can be found here; and you can sign up to speak by clicking here.
The hearing also will be live-streamed on the county’s website, cable TV channel (Channel 24 on Comcast) and Youtube page. Visit cobbcounty.org/CobbTV for other streaming options.
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 meeting, which was to have taken place at the Mountain View Regional Library, is being limited to online participation due to county COVID-19 restrictions.
The first community meeting was cancelled on Jan. 13 due to the current Omicron variant surge.
Monday’s event lasts from 6-8 p.m. and will be conducted via Webex. The signup link can be found by clicking here. The meeting number is2300 863 0071 and the password is “plan5.”
Participants also can join by telephone at +1-415-655-0003 with an access code of 2300 863 0071.
Every five years the state requires local governments to update their long-term planning priorities. The last update in Cobb was in 2017 (you can read it here).
The update covers a wide range of planning topics, including land use, transportation, housing, economic development, community facilities, human services, public health, education, natural and historic resources, public safety, intergovernment coordination, disaster resilience, military compatability and place-making.
Among the development issues in the update that’s raised concern is the proposed creation of a Unified Development Code.
The Cobb Community Development Agency has proposed a UDC—which exists in Atlanta, DeKalb County and the city of Roswell— that incorporates zoning, planning and land-use with design, landscaping, architectural and other guidelines.
The agency said on an information page that the changes are needed to “streamline these documents into one combined document that would be more easily accessible to the public, designers, and County staff reviewers.”
But some civic leaders around the county have been critical of UDC, saying it would change the suburban nature of many Cobb communities (see our previous post). One opponent has said it amounts to declaring “war” on the suburbs.
The 2040 Comprehensive Plan update process will take several months, with additional public meetings to be scheduled, and culminating with a vote by the Cobb Board of Commissioners.
A future meeting is slated for the Mountain View Regional Library, with a date to be determined.
There will be an open house at the Cobb Civic Center on April 14.
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!
After years of pleading, prodding and practically begging, residents in the vicinity of the downtrodden Sprayberry Crossing Shopping Center finally got their wish in 2021.
But the redevelopment plans of Atlantic Realty, an Atlanta luxury apartment builder that first filed its rezoning request in the summer of 2020, will look very different from what was originally intended.
Even after the Cobb Board of Commissioners approved the rezoning in June—with some vocal opposition from other residents—there was yet another twist in what the mixed-use project will look like.
As commissioners were signing off on a project with 132 senior apartments and 102 townhomes and a small amount of retail space, the developer was trying to work out a traffic arrangement with a liquor store owner whose business is located at what would be the new development’s main entrance on Sandy Plains Road.
That project also was to have included a 34,000-square-foot grocery store to be occupied by Lidl. But Atlantic Realty’s discussions with the Sprayberry Bottle Shop fell through, and Lidl is no longer involved in the development.
Other retail space and restaurants are tentatively being planned instead.
Before passage, Atlantic Realty dropped plans for a general apartment building that drew most of the opposition, with those against fearing a single-family area would change the nature of their neighborhoods.
A once-vibrant shopping center that has evolved into a longstanding community eyesore is expected to be demolished in early 2022.
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Residents opposed to the East Cobb Church rezoning application objected to high-density residences.
The cornerstone of a proposed mixed-use project at the Johnson Ferry-Shallowford intersection was the least controversial component of a rezoning saga that took nearly a year to unfold.
While the proposed new home of East Cobb Church wasn’t an issue, residents living near the 33-acre assemblage said the residential portion of the application was too dense and would cause traffic and other quality-of-life concerns.
Cobb commissioners voted 3-1 in October to approve the rezoning, after months of delays and revisions that left residents reeling.
The final revision that was improved will allow for 44 townhomes and 51 single-family detached homes to be built near two single-family subdivisions whose primary access point, Waterfront Drive, is located in the heart of the newly approved residential area.
North Point Ministries, which operates several other megachurches in metro Atlanta, has plans to buy all of the 24 parcels that make up the 33 acres. The current owners of the properties, retired prominent attorney William Hanna and his wife’s ministry, have insisted on selling the land to a single buyer.
North Point has plans to sell 20 acres to Ashwood Atlanta, which will develop the homes.
What especially bothered some residents was a last-minute site plan unveiled at the commission meeting in October, without much time for zoning staff or public review.
“It is clear we need to vote in favor in the 2022 midterms [a] Cityhood vote to protect East Cobb’s interests and ensure we have a zoning board that listens to its taxpayers,” Rachel Bruce said after the vote.
(The properties involved in the East Cobb Church case are all included in the proposed City of East Cobb that will be considered in the 2022 legislative session.)
Other issues include stormwater concerns. What was once known as Maddox Lake has been dredged for several years, and federal officials must determine if that part of the land can be developed.
If it’s declared to be in a flood plain, North Point attorney Kevin Moore said the residential developer would reduce the number of units accordingly.
In her motion to approve the application, commissioner Jerica Richardson—in her first major rezoning case in the East Cobb part of her District 2—included provisions to cap the density at five units an acre.
East Cobb Church, which has been holding services at Eastside Baptist Church, has been promoting its campaign for a worship facility as part of the “Revitalize JOSH campaign.”
A year after commissioners approved the Johnson Ferry-Shallowford master plan, an underdeveloped corner of that intersection will be revived by a project that wasn’t contemplated during the lengthy master plan process.
For East Cobb Church, coming home means a commitment to its new community.
“We’ve been dreaming of a home, not just to go but, but to launch from, into the community, on a mission to love, where we live,” Pastor Jamey Dickens said in a church-produced video after the rezoning vote.
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Mt. Bethel Christian Academy wants to built an athletic field (blue star) near homeowners in the Holly Springs subdivision, but residents say the proposal is incomplete.
The Cobb Board of Commissioners voted Tuesday to hold a request by Mt. Bethel Christian Academy to change its site plan for athletic facilities at its North campus.
The private school’s application for revisions to a special land-use permit will wait to be heard in February, when zoning cases resume in Cobb County.
Northeast Cobb commissioner JoAnn Birrell said in making the motion for the delay that the site plan changes weren’t complete, and what had been formally submitted was received only last week.
In addition, nearby residents and the East Cobb Civic Association objected to what was proposed.
“In light of all that, I would rather that we hold this,” said Birrell, and the vote was a unanimous 5-0.
Birrell had previously met with county zoning staff and Mt. Bethel Christian leaders about the changes before the school hired noted Cobb zoning attorney Kevin Moore.
“We asked that they provide a complete site plan,” Birrell said. “I didn’t receive anything until Dec. 15, after 5 p.m.”
Mt. Bethel Christian Academy has operated a high school campus on 33 acres on Post Oak Tritt Road since 2014; the site plan approved with a special land-use permit (SLUP) permitted athletic facilities on the northern side of the property, but any changes must come back before commissioners.
Moore reminded commissioners during Tuesday’s hearing of the approved uses in that SLUP, and reiterated that it also included no field lighting.
The proposed changes would remove a track previously approved around the field, relocate a field house and add 39 parking spaces for a total of 121.
Richard Grome, president of the East Cobb Civic Association, said the Mt. Bethel site plan presented by Moore “is not showing the complete picture.”
He noted that the ECCA met with Moore on Dec. 2, received the new site plan on Dec. 9, and then a new stipulation letter on Dec. 15.
In addition to concerns over the impact of two retaining walls close to homeowners adjacent to the field, the proposals don’t include elevations for the athletic facility.
“They need to know what this raised concrete stadium will look like from their yards,” he said.
Some of those property owners, who live on Alberta Drive in the Holly Springs subdivision, had planned to be in attendance at the zoning hearing, but were not due to COVID-19 concerns.
One of them, Leonard Jacobs, told East Cobb News prior to the hearing that the athletic field “will be part of my back yard. I can watch them from my dining room table.”
He said the process has been rushed, and residents had only six days between meeting with Moore and the hearing date.
He said that he wanted to “correct the impression” that the school “is trying to mitigate the nuisance they have created on a property too small and poorly located for the stated purpose.”
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Mt. Bethel Christian Academy will be asking Cobb commissioners next week to amend the site plan for its high school campus on Post Oak Tritt Road to relocate an approved athletic field house and to accommodate more parking space.
The private school run by Mt. Bethel United Methodist Church has an “Other Business” item on the commission’s zoning hearing agenda that requests moving a planned field house from the north to the south end of campus.
The agenda item (you can read it here), the last to be heard on Tuesday, also requests relocating 82 parking spaces and creating 39 more parking spaces for a total of 121.
Mt. Bethel Christian Academy was granted a special-land use plan permit in 2013 from commissioners in order to open its high school at 2509 Post Oak Tritt Road, near the intersection of Holly Springs Road.
Mt. Bethel operates grades 9-12 on what it calls its Upper Campus (with K-8 classes on the Mt. Bethel United Methodist Church grounds on Lower Roswell Road).
The original approval of the Upper Campus special-land use permit included a site plan for the athletic facilities on the northern side of the property, but any changes to the site plan or stipulations must come back before commissioners.
The new site plan modifications are needed, the agenda item states, after engineering work was done on the site and “to best utilize the Property now and in future years.”
The hearing also will be live-streamed on the county’s website, cable TV channel (Channel 24 on Comcast) and Youtube page. Visit cobbcounty.org/CobbTV for other streaming options.
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A developer wants to turn an older homesite on Trickum Road with an ample backyard and wooded area into a 10-home subdivision.
An application by Lot One Homes would convert 4.33 acres across from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints into a new residential community along a very slender stretch of property owned by The Edna E. Miller Revocable Trust.
The case will be heard Tuesday by the Cobb Planning Commission, which is conducting its final hearing until February.
The Lot One Homes application is seeking RA-5 zoning for the lot, which in its current R-20 category would allow up to seven homes (you can read the filing here).
The request for 10 detached homes calls for a density of 2.3 units per acre, and the Cobb Zoning Office has recommended approval for a limit of 2.1 units an acre, as well as other conditions.
This isn’t the first time this piece of land has gone before the county for rezoning. Garvis Sams, a noted Cobb zoning attorney representing Lot One Homes, wrote in a Nov. 23 stipulation letter that the property was included in a larger assemblage in 2006 for 22 homes in a case that was rejected and later was subject to litigation.
But the developer didn’t close on the land, which has remained R-20, Sams said.
The land is located above the Hillcrest Oaks subdivision along Sandy Plains Road that’s zoned RA-4, a higher density.
The Lot One Homes request calls for homes along one residential street, with the homes ranging between 2,650 and 3,150 square feet and possibly more, bordered by 10-15 feet landscaping buffers and guest parking spaces.
At the back of the development would be a home on a cul-de-sac, with a detention pond and a stormwater management area.
Sams said in his letter his client has been discussing the case with the East Cobb Civic Association, which has said it is in support of the application per the stipulation letter and other stipulations.
The case is Z-85 and it’s scheduled to be heard close to the end of the hearing, under new business.
The hearing starts at 9 a.m. in the second floor board room of the Cobb government building (100 Cherokee St., downtown Marietta).
COVID-19 protocols are being followed, including mandatory masks and a limit on in-person attendance due to social-distancing.
The hearing also will be live-streamed on the county’s website, cable TV channel (Channel 24 on Comcast) and Youtube page. Visit cobbcounty.org/CobbTV for other streaming options.
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The Johnson Ferry-Shallowford Master Plan, adopted in 2020, reflects community desires to maintain a distinct suburban feel.
A controversial proposal to create a Unified Development Code in Cobb County will be further introduced to the public on Wednesday in the first of several town hall meetings to take place over the next few months.
The Wednesday virtual meeting, which will be presented by Cobb Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid, starts at 6:30 p.m., and will be live-streamed on the county government’s YouTube channel.
Citizens wishing to ask questions in advance can do so by e-mailing comments@cobbcounty.org.
In October, Cobb commissioners approved a contract for consulting services to establish a UDC, which incorporates zoning, planning and land-use with design, landscaping, architectural and other guidelines.
That’s the first word that got out to the public that a UDC process was being developed. Other metro Atlanta jurisdictions with UDC codes include Atlanta and DeKalb, and most recently, the city of Roswell, whose code went into effect in 2014.
The Cobb Community Development Agency said on an information page that the changes are needed to “streamline these documents into one combined document that would be more easily accessible to the public, designers, and County staff reviewers.”
At a recent commission meeting, county community development director Jessica Guinn said Cobb’s zoning ordinance is more than 50 years old, and that a more comprehensive process is needed that periodic updates.
But some leading civic leaders have been vocal in opposition, including Vinings resident Ron Sifen, who said the county hasn’t explained exactly what needs to be updated.
Another critic is East Cobb resident Jan Barton, who wrote a letter to the editor to the MDJ in November declaring the UDC a “war” on the suburbs.
The Committee for Cityhood in East Cobb, which is proposing planning and zoning services, republished the letter on its website. Two other cityhood movements in Cobb, in Vinings and west Cobb, also have emerged this year out of concerns over high-density development in the county.
Those concerns also were raised earlier this year during protracted zoning cases in the East Cobb area, over the redevelopment of the Sprayberry Crossing shopping center and the East Cobb Church mixed-use case at Johnson Ferry and Shallowford Roads.
(The East Cobb Church project, which includes high-density housing that were opposed by some nearby residents, is on property that would be included in the proposed city of East Cobb.)
In a video posted last week on the county’s website, Guinn told Cobb government public information officer Ross Cavitt that “what you see in your neighborhood is going to pretty much be the same.”
Cobb is currently conducting a five-year update the county’s 2040 Comprehensive Plan, which will be one of the main documents used during the UDC process.
Other community meetings on the UDC have been scheduled through March, including a Jan. 24 meeting at the Mlountain View Regional Library from 6-8 p.m.
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Among them is a request by INV3GRP LLC to rezone 3.4 acres on Merneil Drive from R-20 to RA-4 for an 11-home detached single-family subdivision (Z-73, agenda item here) and shown on the aerial map above.
The property is a vacant lot south of Post Oak Tritt Road, and while RA-4 housing is located nearby, the Cobb Zoning Office is recommending denial, saying it doesn’t fit the lower-density housing on Marneil Drive.
The lot is also designated for low-density residential use on the county’s future land use map.
The next case, Z-74 (agenda item, stipulation letter), is on the consent agenda because there has been no announced staff or community opposition.
It’s a request to rezone 1.14 acres from R-30 to R-20 for two single family homes on Wesley Chapel Road.
It’s an undeveloped lot belonging to Glennis F. Willis, who also owned 49 nearby acres that were rezoned in September 2020 for an 81-home subdivision near Garrison Mill Elementary School.
That property, which falls on either side of Wesley Chapel Road, is currently being developed into what will be called the Garrison Park subdivision.
Another East Cobb case on the consent agenda, Z-76, is being requested by Lot One Homes Inc. It would rezone a half-acre on Lassiter Road, just west of the intersection at Johnson Ferry Road, from low-rise office to RA-5 for two homes.
It’s a vacant lot between a convenience store and the Garland Square residential community, which is zoned suburban condominium (agenda item, stipulation letter).
Z-76 also is on the consent agenda, and the Cobb Zoning Staff has recommended approval (as it has Z-74) with some condition.
Both of those applicants are being represented by noted Cobb zoning attorney Garvis Sams.
The full agenda for Tuesday’s hearing can be found here; it will take place at 9 a.m. in the second floor board room of the Cobb government building (100 Cherokee St., downtown Marietta).
COVID-19 protocols are being followed, including mandatory masks and a limit on in-person attendance due to social-distancing.
The hearing also will be live-streamed on the county’s website, cable TV channel (Channel 24 on Comcast) and Youtube page. Visit cobbcounty.org/CobbTV for other streaming options.
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The Cobb Board of Commissioners approved a 92-home subdivision on Ebenezer Road Tuesday after several days.
Some changes were made by the developer, Pulte Homes, after being held last month. Commissioners voted 5-0 to approve that number of homes, with additional provisions.
Pulte maintained its request for 92 homes on nearly 50 acres, but added a viewshed protection plan to address concerns from nearby residents of major stormwater runoff.
Hosack, a former Cobb County Manager and head of the Cobb community development agency, said the density of 1.96 units per acre was consistent with nearby subdivisions.
John Steutzer, a nearby resident, said while he and other neighbors are pleased with an R-15 rezoning request, 92 homes is “too dense for the area,” and suggested a limit of 85 homes.
He also said the lot sizes were not “buildable” enough and the proposed home sizes were too small, and urged that they be at least 3,000 square feet.
They also wanted more buffer, berm, landscaping, architectural, traffic and stormwater management changes.
While Pulte proposed a four-way stop at Ebenezer and Maybreeze, Steutzer said the traffic stemming from a 92-home subdivision was sufficient to require a roundabout, and said the neighbors want a signaled crosswalk for children using nearby schools.
He requested a delay or denial of the request. Commissioner JoAnn Birrell, whose District 3 includes the Ebenezer Road property, made a motion to approve the 92 homes with several stipulations, including a 35 percent maximum of impervious surfaces on all lots.
She also included the 3,000-square foot minimum for home sizes in her motion.
“An SBA loan is not a fix,” Lilly said. The Pulte Homes project has two lakes and a creek, she said, “that affect many people downstream. Could this be the reason why I have a sinkhole on my property? Maybe.”
Birrell asked county stormwater officials to work with the developer to resolve issues during plan review regarding a lake that currently is owned by private residents.
She also said that final landscaping and buffer determinations should come back for her approval.
“A lot of this will be done in plan review and will be looked at by all of us when it’s final,” Birrell said.
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North Point Ministries attorney Kevin Moore points to the latest site plan at Tuesday’s Cobb Board of Commissioners hearing.
By a 3-1 vote, the Cobb Board of Commissioners on Tuesday approved the North Point Ministries rezoning request for a mixed-use development.
The vote comes 10 months after it was first considered, and after nearly two dozen site plans and other revisions were submitted.
The 33-acre assemblage at the southwest corner of Shallowford and Johnson Ferry roads will include the East Cobb Church, some retail space and 95 high-density residential units.
That figure was part of the latest site plan, filed last week by North Point, but which hadn’t been formally presented to the community.
Another major revision was to restore access from Johnson Ferry to the Waterfront and MarLanta subdivisions along a relocated Waterfront Drive, but without cut-through access from the new residential community.
Cobb commissioner Jerica Richardson, whose District 2 includes the Johnson Ferry-Shallowford area, made as part of her motion to approve the rezoning the creation of a three-member “JOSH” community advisory group that would be included in site plan review.
Two of those individuals, resident Ruth Michels of the MarLanta subdivision and former Cobb commissioner Thea Powell of Chimney Lakes, spoke in opposition to the rezoning.
“We’re at a loss for words,” Michels said, calling the further revised site plan “completely inappropriate.”
Cobb commissioner Jerica Richardson
She said the last-minute changes show that “the applicant isn’t listening to and working with the community.”
Michels said she wondered whether the rezoning would have been considered at all had it not been made by a religious organization.
Questions over density, traffic and stormwater runoff have dogged the application from the beginning. A total of 95 people, in person and watching virtually, were counted as being opposed, with 54 in support.
The residential portion of the new site plan would include 44 townhomes and 51 single-family detached homes under the RA-5 category.
North Point will sell off the 20.6 acres for the residential development to Ashwood Atlanta. The property owners, Bill and Lynn Hanna of East Cobb, have wanted to sell off all the land at once, and not in segments.
Kevin Moore, the North Point attorney, said that “we do believe that this strikes the proper balance,” and noted that there were fewer townhomes than detached homes, when in earlier site plans that mix was the other way around.
The Waterfront Drive access would be limited to those living in nearby subdivisions, with cut-through mitigation elements to be determined in site plan review, according to Richardson’s motion.
That intersection currently includes a traffic light at Johnson Ferry and the entrance to the Shallowford Falls shopping center.
She also included a provision that exit access from the new development onto Johnson Ferry be right-turn only, meaning southbound.
In addition, the limit of impervious surfaces on the residential area would be capped at 40 percent, down from an estimated 45 percent proposed in a North Point stipulation letter submitted last week.
Richardson’s motion also limits density in the residential portion to five units an acre. She also said that revisions to the church plans (under the low-rise office category) and the retail portion (neighborhood activity center zoning) could be brought back to commissioners.
Voting against the rezoning was commissioner Keli Gambrill of North Cobb, who called the last minute changes “speculative” and objected to having to vote on a case that staff hadn’t had time to examine.
Gambrill wondered why residential revisions couldn’t also be brought back, since that’s been the most controversial portion of the rezoning case.
She noted that in September, North Point was proposing private roads in the residential community, which would have allowed for greater lot sizes, but wasn’t sure if that was the case now.
“What is the lot size we are looking at?” asked Gambrill, who said that “I’m very surprised at how this is being handled.”
Cobb Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid recused herself from the vote, due to a conflict of interest (a family member attends another North Point church).
After the vote, nearby resident Rachel Bruce said the commission’s decision to pass a site plan proposed at the hearing “sets a dangerous precedent for our area that will allow developers to do this over and over again.
“It is clear we need to vote in favor in the 2022 midterms [a] Cityhood vote to protect East Cobb’s interests and ensure we have a zoning board that listens to its taxpayers,” she said in a message e-mailed to East Cobb News.
East Cobb Church also posted a pre-recorded message from Pastor Jamey Dickens on its Facebook page, saying “WE DID IT!”
In his comments (you can watch them here), Dickens made several references to home. Since its inception in 2019, East Cobb Church has been holding services at Eastside Baptist Church.
“We’ve been dreaming of a home, not just to go but, but to launch from, into the community, on a mission to love, where we live,” he said, standing on the property where the 125,000-square foot church will be built.
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Political parties at the local level don’t often get involved in what are typically non-partisan issues, especially zoning cases.
But the Cobb Republican Party has come out in opposition to the North Point Ministries/East Cobb Church rezoning case, which is being heard again by the Cobb Board of Commissioners on Tuesday.
In a statement issued over the weekend on its Facebook page, the Cobb GOP said while it wasn’t against the church, the “density and intensity of this over-reaching zoning is a deal breaker.”
(UPDATE: This post appears to have been deleted or is not available to the general public. Here’s an archived version.)
Like much of the opposition that has formed against the proposed mixed-use project at Johnson Ferry and Shallowford roads, that’s a reference to the residential portion of the assembled 33 acres.
North Point last week submitted yet another site plan, and is now asking for 44 townhomes and 51 single-family detached homes.
“They are using flood plain in the density calculation to make it appear there are only 5.37 homes per acre, knowing there is already down stream flooding,” says the Cobb GOP message, which urges its followers to contact the two Republican commissioners, JoAnn Birrell and Keli Gambrill, in particular and tell them to vote no.
At the September zoning hearing, Democratic commissioner Jerica Richardson of District 2 asked to hold the case when traffic, density and stormwater issues were renewed. “Jerica needs one of their votes for this to pass as Chairwoman Cupid has recused herself,” the Cobb Republican message states.
In recent weeks, the Cobb Democratic Party has been holding forums about municipal elections in Cobb County, which are non-partisan. They’ve invited candidates running in Acworth and Kennesaw and the party has been canvassing for unspecified candidates in Marietta, where voting for city council and school board races is continuing through the Nov. 2 elections.
“All politics is local and it doesn’t get more local than City Council elections. Let’s build those true blue grassroots by electing some local officials that represent our values. Blue from the bottom-up.”
Otherwise, both local major political parties have stuck to internecine and boilerplate partisan matters.
The Cobb GOP passed a resolution censuring Gov. Brian Kemp, prompting the resignation of former chairman Jason Shepherd from the county committee. The Cobb Young Republicans then denounced the censure.
Cobb Democrats have been sounding off on the GOP-led Cobb Board of Education, most recently blistering chairman Randy Scamihorn for an anti-Semitism resolution passed without input from the three Democrats on the school board.
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The latest site plan by North Point Ministries changes the residential mix and reinstates Waterfront Drive access to nearby neighborhoods. For a larger view click here.
As happened in September, North Point Ministries has filed yet another site plan and stipulation letter for its rezoning request for a church/residential/retail complex that goes before the Cobb Board of Commissioners Tuesday.
Pulte Homes has done the same with a subdivision proposal on Ebenezer Road that’s also been delayed multiple times.
In a 21-page letter sent to the Cobb Zoning Office on Wednesday, North Point attorney Kevin Moore announced new totals for the controversial residential portion of the proposed development at Johnson Ferry and Shallowford roads, and reintroduced access to nearby neighborhoods via Waterfront Drive that had been removed last month.
In his letter (you can read it here), Moore said the new proposal calls for 63 townhomes and 49 single-family detached homes. At the September commissioners’ hearing (our story here), those figures were 44 and 51 respectively.
The request has switched back to seeking RA-6 rezoning for the residential units after being at RA-5 last month, and a corresponding increase in density, from 4.98 units an acre to 5.37.
The Waterfront Drive access from Johnson Ferry will also connect with the adjacent Waterfront neighborhood, which had been another major point of contention at the September hearing.
Commissioners voted to hold the case due to density and traffic complaints made by nearby residents, as well as the East Cobb Civic Association.
The changes aren’t likely to change the minds of opponents, who’ve said the mixed-use development is too intense for the area.
There are also stormwater issues that would remain uncertain should the application be approved. A federal floodplain study would be done after that, which could affect the number of residential units.
Also complicating the matter is Cobb Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid’s recusal from the case, citing a family member who attends another North Point Church, and leaving the decision to her four colleagues.
In the Ebenezer Road case, Pulte Home is keeping its request for 92 homes on nearly 50 acres, but has added a viewshed protection plan to address concerns from nearby residents of major stormwater runoff.
As happened in September, the commissioners will hear Tuesday’s cases in two separate sessions.
The North Point case will be the first after the consent agenda (summary here; more details here) in the morning session, which starts at 9 a.m.
The Pulte case will lead off the afternoon session, with an unspecified starting time.
The full agenda can be found here; the zoning hearing will take place in the second floor board room of the Cobb government building (100 Cherokee St., downtown Marietta).
COVID-19 protocols are being followed, including mandatory masks and a limit on in-person attendance due to social-distancing.
The hearing also will be live-streamed on the county’s website, cable TV channel (Channel 24 on Comcast) and Youtube page. Visit cobbcounty.org/CobbTV for other streaming options.
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 2021 Cobb County Future Land Use Map; for a larger version click here.
The Cobb Board of Commissioners will conduct a public hearing Tuesday to begin the process for updating the Cobb 2040 Comprehensive Plan.
Every five years the state requires local governments to update their long-term planning priorities.
The last update in Cobb was in 2017 (you can read it here), and Tuesday’s hearing will feature details on a timeline for the 2022 process, including a public meeting schedule and methods for getting citizen input.
That hearing (agenda item here) will take place near the start of the meeting, after public recognitions and before the public comment period.
The Cobb 2040 Comprehensive Plan also serves as a vision statement across a number of topics:
Land use; transportation; housing, economic development, community facilities, human services, public health, education, natural and historic resources, public safety, intergovernment coordination, disaster resilience, military compatability and place-making.
More information about the county’s comprehensive planning activities can be found here.
The commissioners’ meeting begins at 9 a.m. (full agenda packet here) in the second floor board room of the Cobb government building (100 Cherokee St., downtown Marietta).
At 1:30 p.m. Tuesday commissioners will have a work session in the same location to hear presentations from county department heads to begin the fiscal years 2023-24 biennial budget process (agenda item here).
COVID-19 protocols are being followed for both meetings, including mandatory masks and a limit on in-person attendance due to social-distancing.
The meetings also will be live-streamed on the county’s website, cable TV channel (Channel 24 on Comcast) and Youtube page. Visit cobbcounty.org/CobbTV for other streaming options.
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!
