Cobb commissioners hold East Cobb rezonings until February

A proposal to turn one of the older homesteads in the Powers Ferry Road corridor into a self-storage facility was put on hold Tuesday by the Cobb Board of Commissioners.

A rezoning request by ADP Terrell Mill on two parcels of land on Terrell Mill Road at Delk Road was opposed by some nearby residents and recommended for denial by the Cobb Zoning Staff, despite the applicant’s many changes and negotiations with the community.

They included architectural design changes to make the exterior of the proposed 40,000-square foot building look residential. The facility would be built by Shamrock Building Systems, a prominent self-storage builder in the Atlanta area.

“It looks and feels much more residential, and fits in with the neighborhood,” said zoning attorney Kevin Moore, who represents the applicant.

Kevin Nicholas, who lives in the nearby Amberley Place subdivision, wasn’t buying it.

“We don’t need another self-storage facility in this area,” said Nicholas, who ran for Cobb commissioner in 2020 and also served on the Development Authority of Cobb County. “It’s not a commercial tract. It’s a residential tract.”

There’s a self-storage building at the new MarketPlace Terrell mixed-use development and further down Powers Ferry near Windy Ridge Parkway.

(You can read the case file by clicking here.)

The 2.55 acres at the intersection of Terrell Mill and Delk are zoned R-80, the lowest-density of single-family zoning categories in the Cobb code.

Each of the two tracts have had single-family homes dating from before the area became heavily surburbanized. Nearby residential zoning ranges from R-20 to RA-6—there’s an adjacent townhome community—but the property owned by the late Ruby Inez Fridell is designated as very low density residential (VLDR) on the Cobb future land use map.

“That just doesn’t match to me,” Commissioner JoAnn Birrell said, noting that most of the e-mails she’s received are opposed to the rezoning.

Cobb zoning division manager John Pederson told her that’s the last R-80 land in that area of East Cobb.

Nicholas and several commissioners suggested either other commercial uses—such as a coffee shop—or residential.

But Moore said residential development there is not “economically viable. It’s too small of a property.”

Commission chairwoman Lisa Cupid noted that citizens rarely speak in favor of self-storage facilities.

“Maybe there are pigs flying outside,” she said. “It’s a beautiful building” but she suggested that other commercial uses “may be more neighborhood-oriented.”

Commissioner Jerica Richardson of District 2 made a motion to hold the case to February, when zoning cases are next heard.

“There may be a way to satisfy the community on that side and honor the work that’s been done” by the applicant,” she said.

Richardson also moved to hold another case in her district, a site-plan change involving a Walgreens store in the Johnson Ferry Road corridor.

David Weinstein, an attorney representing Mid-Atlantic Commercial Properties, LLC, said his client is seeking a change from a single-use only designation for 1.28 acres at 3033 Johnson Ferry Road.

He said Walgreens will be vacating that facility, and his client wants to have some more flexibility within the neighborhood retail commercial (NRC) category.

(You can read the case filing by clicking here.)

In rezoning the land in 2000, Cobb commissioners limited that use to a pharmacy or drug store only. Other uses proposed by Mid-Atlantic Commercial Properties could be for a banks or medical office, as well as restaurant space.

The existing building could remain standing and be converted, or a new facility could be constructed, Weinstein said, adding that his client may purchase two adjoining parcels on Johnson Ferry to enable a deceleration lane.

He mentioned a fast-casual concept with a drive-thru as a possibility, but the East Cobb Civic Association is opposed to that use.

ECCA president Richard Grome said there are traffic, noise and compatibility issues with the request. The Walgreens sits at the intersection of Johnson Ferry and Waterfront Drive, adjacent to planned townhomes that were part of the East Cobb Church rezoning in 2021.

“There’s going to be light pollution for those townhouses,” Grome said.

Rachel Bruce, a member of the Johnson Ferry-Shallowford (JOSH) advisory committee created by Richardson, said she hadn’t heard from the applicant and worried that residents in the area would have one less place to get prescription drugs.

“Walgreens is leaving. We don’t have any control over that,” Weinstein said.

Cobb DOT said the Walgreens property doesn’t have enough right-of-way for a deceleration lane, and if a restaurant were to built there, access via Johnson Ferry should be removed.

Commissioner Keli Gambrill said she understood why her predecessors limited what could go on that land.

“Based on DOT, there’s not room for deceleration,” she said. “I agree with not having a restaurant there.”

Richardson’s motion includes provisions for JOSH committee input and the submission of a site plan and architectural plans when the case comes back before commissioners.

A proposal for a King’s Hawaiian restaurant in Northeast Cobb, which has been delayed before, also is being pushed back to February.

Birrell said she received a new stipulation letter from an attorney for Stein Investment Group on Tuesday.

The applicant wants to add the restaurant on former GTC Cobb Park 12 Cinema property on Gordy Parkway and Shallowford Road that rezoned last year for a self-storage facility.

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