Mapping the future of the Johnson Ferry-Shallowford community

With all kinds of maps abounding all around them—for land use, stormwater management, traffic and more—a few dozen citizens from the Johnson Ferry-Shallowford community turned out last week to continue efforts at developing a master plan.

After some input meetings last spring, Cobb County officials decided to come back this winter to solicit more feedback. At the first of those meetings, at the Chestnut Ridge Christian Church, commissioner Bob Ott explained how the “JOSH” master plan process—short for Johnson Ferry-Shallowford—is similar to those that have taken place previously and that have involved his constituents.

“Instead of consultants, we have community meetings and you help design the plan that you want,” he said.

That’s what has happened in the Powers Ferry Corridor, and with “urban design” guidelines on Johnson Ferry Road between Roswell and Lower Roswell elsewhere in East Cobb.

The high-density and mixed-use development that’s accelerating along Powers Ferry, or in the case of the Johnson Ferry Urban Design plan, the use of language, have concerned some in the JOSH area about what may be in store for where they live.

It’s a community with overwhelmingly single family residential homes, a population that’s older and a higher median income average than the rest of Cobb County.

It’s also new territory for Ott, whose District 2 was redrawn in 2016 to include JOSH. He referenced another master plan in his district that is similar to what he’s seeing for JOSH.

The Vinings Vision MasterPlan was developed out of an interest in preserving the feel of an older community surrounded by high-scale commercial growth in the Cumberland area.

The Vinings plan, Ott said, was deemed a “protection plan” when it was finished.

“This also appears to be a protection plan instead of a redevelopment plan,” he said of JOSH.

In Vinings, citizens took an additional six months to finalize that plan. Two more meetings are scheduled over the next two months for the JOSH master plan. Cobb Community Development Agency staff will present a preliminary plan on Feb. 12, and a draft plan on March 12, and public comments also will be sought.

Both of those meetings also will be at Chestnut Ridge Christian Church (2663 Johnson Ferry Road), starting at 7 p.m.

The master plan will include future land use, infrastructure, stormwater, parks and recreation, building design and more (JOSH outline here).

Last spring, some citizens objected to an image preference survey that included photos of high-density development. Ott asked community development staff to rework the survey.

Jason Gaines, the community development agency’s planning division chief (above), broke down some of the JOSH demographics (boundary map here):

• Population: 26,600
• Employment: 4,400
• Median Age: 44.9 years (Cobb median: 36.5)
• Median household income: $119K (Cobb: $72K)
• Median per capita income: $51K (Cobb: 36K)
• Housing: 9.4K units; 98.2% owner-occupied; 99.5% single-family residential detached (Cobb: 66.2%)
• Median home value: $347K (Cobb: $219.7K)

Phillip Westbrook of the planning division said 86 percent of the land in the JOSH map that’s included in the proposed master plan is residential (mostly low-density) and has only two major commercial areas: at the Johnson Ferry-Shallowford intersection, and on Shallowford near Lassiter Road.

Much of the current future land use map for the JOSH area hasn’t changed much over the last 25 years. Perhaps the most closely-watched case is at the southwestern intersection of Johnson Ferry-Shallowford, where a proposed residential zoning application was withdrawn in 2017. In addition to high-density issues there also have been concerns over stormwater, since the 30-acre property includes a lake.

“What’s going on that property we don’t know,” Ott said. “But this map is going to change.”

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