The Cobb Planning Commission on Tuesday put a hold on Eastside Church’s proposal to build a senior living facility on its campus on Lower Roswell Road.
The vote was 4-0 for the delay, to give time for the applicant to meet with nearby residents who expressed concerns over stormwater and density issues above all.
As reported by East Cobb News, Eastside Church wants to convert vacant parking areas on its property for a 95-unit assisted living/memory care building and eight independent living cottages for seniors as part of its expanded church mission.
The main three-story building would have full services and amenities, including medical care and food service, as well as exercise and recreational space.
A retention pond would be landscaped and surrounded by a walking trail to serve the senior community, which would have 133 parking spaces.
Church leaders didn’t speak at the Tuesday zoning hearing, but Eastside attorney Kevin Moore made multiple references that the project would resemble in scope, if not in scale, the Sterling Estates senior complexes in both East Cobb and West Cobb.
Moore pointed out what a church marketing study concluded, with an unmet demand of nearly 1,500 senior living units in the East Cobb area.
“Which goes to show you why this is so necessary and so needed,” Moore said.
He also reminded members of the Planning Commission that the residential senior-living (RSL) category Eastside is seeking includes in the Cobb County Code that “these uses shall not be established as a precedent for any other residential or non-residential district.”
But Richard Grome, president of the East Cobb Civic Association, said the senior living complex is incompatible with nearby residential areas and would offer a “fortress-like structure” that would be easily visible.
He said the 13-unit per-acre density is too high for the community, saying the proposal is not a “modest increase but is a dramatic escalation” compared to its residential surroundings.
Nearby residents said they were given notice by Eastside of the rezoning only by the end of April, and said the plans changed multiple times but they weren’t always updated.
“This project would tower over the homes on Freydale Road,” said Abby Shiffman of the Magnolia South subdivision across Lower Roswell from the church.
Eastside Church is bounded by the Red Oak Park subdivision, which has smaller, mostly single-story homes built in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Steve Wright, a Freydale Road resident since 1984 and whose home is adjacent to the soccer field on the church property, said stormwater problems have increased as the church has grown over the years.
In addition to the sanctuary and church office building, Eastside added a community recreation center and a school, adding to the impervious surface area. The new parking spaces, Wright said, will only add to that.
“I’ve had to build a berm of 50 feet wide and 50 feet long at my own expense to keep the stormwater from overflowing my backyard,” he said. Another neighbor had to install a dry creek to prevent water overflows from the church parking lot.
“If you’re going to approve this project, make sure the retention pond actually works,” he said, “and drain to it and not into my backyard.”
Another resident on Lucky Court worried about noise and lighting from the proposed site for the cottages, which would back up to her property.
Moore said the retention pond in the area hasn’t been sufficient because it is aging and hasn’t been maintained, and that with the Eastside Church project, “we’re going to employ today’s standards on stormwater retention and management” that will alleviate many of the existing issues.
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