Condemnation requested for Lower Roswell Road parcels

Lower Roswell road parcels

The Cobb Department of Transportation will ask county commissioners Tuesday to begin condemnation proceedings for rights-of-way and easements for the Lower Roswell Road transportation project.

Since commissioners last year approved the conceptual plan for the project—which will stretch from Davidson Road to Woodlawn Drive—Cobb DOT has continued with property acquisitions and other work to begin construction.

According to an agenda item, the county is requesting access to six parcels, five of them in a residential community.

Those homeowners are in the Gates on Woodlawn townhomes, at the northwest intersection of Lower Roswell and Woodlawn.

That’s close to the western end point of the nearly $9 million project (fact sheet; location map) that would expand traffic lanes, create special turn lanes in some areas and construct a raised median along one portion of the route.

The county says small portions of the parcels are needed for right-of-way and temporary construction easements.

While Cobb DOT continues to talk to the property owners, “in order to meet project deadlines, condemnation authority is requested,” the agenda item states.

A similar resolution has been proposed for a portion of property housing the Bank of America ATM at 4851 Lower Roswell Road, next to the McDonald’s.

(Here’s a map of the parcels.)

The county also recently received right-of-way and easement access for a portion of the 1.2 acres of Mt. Bethel Park that’s owned by the Cobb County School District.

The land was the original site of Mt. Bethel Elementary School, and makes up part of the nearly four-acre park, the rest of which is owned by the Cobb Parks and Recreation Department.

The Lower Roswell transportation project has been delayed several years. In an interview with East Cobb News last year, Cobb DOT engineer Karyn Matthews said “we wanted to get the right concept for the community.”

The county has had to purchase all but three of the 32 parcels since commissioners approved the concept plan.

Other features of the traffic project include creating dual left-turn lanes from westbound Lower Roswell onto southbound Johnson Ferry Road, and creating a two-lane extension on Lower Roswell in either direction west of Woodlawn Drive, to Parkcrest Place.

That’s part of a major overhaul of a long-bottlenecked intersection that will have dedicated right-turn lanes onto Woodlawn from Lower Roswell.

Once construction begins, the project is expected to take two years to complete. Funding will come from the 2011 Cobb SPLOST.

The Board of Commissioners meeting starts at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the second floor board room of the Cobb government building (100 Cherokee St., downtown Marietta).

The full agenda can be found here; the meeting 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.