Marietta annexes, rezones Sandy Plains Road subdivision

Sandy Plains Road home developer seeks Marietta annexation — *A wall fronting the Village of Sandy Plains subdivision violated a Cobb County ordinance and resulted in a court dispute.*

After losing a legal battle with Cobb County over a subdivision under construction on Sandy Plains Road, the developer of a single-family community has been pursuing annexation with the City of Marietta.

On Wednesday, the Marietta City Council voted to annex the 15-acre property on Sandy Plains near the Scufflegrit Road intersection and rezone it to accommodate a 90-home development.

The rezoning vote passed 4-3, and the vote to annex the property was 5-2.

First Center Inc., part of David Pearson Communities, a residential builder, got RA-6 rezoning from Cobb to build what it’s calling the Village of Sandy Plains.

The planned homes in Marietta will fall under the PRD (planned residential develoopment) category at roughly 6 units an acre, similar to what Cobb allowed.

First Center built out private roads and installed underground utilities while haggling with the county over a wall that fronts Sandy Plains Road.

The Cobb ordinance allowed for only a 6-foot-high wall, but it’s 10 feet in most places and higher in others.

First Center sued the county over the matter, but in February, lost its appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court ruled as it prepared its Marietta annexation request.

The council first heard the matter in March, but voted to hold it after the council’s planning commission recommended denial.

The city zoning staff’s analysis noted that “the developer has provided conflicting zoning plans, site plans, and final plats, none of which appear to fully meet City regulations” and hasn’t provided sufficient information about a number of variances that would be needed.

Kevin Moore, First Center’s attorney, told city council members Wednesday that “there’s a misunderstanding about how high the walls can be in Cobb County.”

He said the county ordinance allows walls to be higher than 10 feet if they are concealing homes from the Main street.

But he said the reason his client sought annexation was because of higher development standards in Marietta that require four-sided architecture and a limit of only 5 percent of the units being rentals.

*An aerial view of the First Center property (outlined in black), is between home developments in Cobb and Marietta.*

“There is in fact this already in the city of Marietta and it is highly, highly desired,” Moore said, showing slides of similar developments in existence.

Moore said the property tax benefits to the city would be $640,000 a year.

But a homebuilding company that purchased 41 of the 90 lots from First Center filed an objection.

Lisa Marchower, an attorney for Davidson Homes LLC, said that her client wants to stay with the county, primarily for reasons related to schools.

The annexed property is close to Kincaid Elementary School in the Cobb County School District and is adjacent to some city-zoned residential areas where students attend Marietta City Schools. (Cobb commissioners in November rezoned adjacent property for a 91-home subdivision.)

Marchower said First Center didn’t inform Davidson Homes about seeking annexation with Marietta until well after it had filed paperwork with the city.

“It is the strong preference of the builder, Davidson Homes, that the Village at Sandy Plains Subdivision is not annexed into the City, but rather, remains in Cobb County,” she wrote in a March 7 letter to council members.

She said requiring Davidson Homes to switch and meet city building standards “will significantly increase the cost of building homes in the Village at Sandy Plains Subdivision and will make my client’s home building efforts economically marginal. We have serious concerns about the economic viability of a development at this location that is forced to comply with the standards of the City.”

That letter did not come up Wednesday.

Resident Ben Brewer worried that if students in Village of Sandy Plains have to attend Marietta City Schools, he said, “they’re going to be spending hours on the buses.”

“This is a Cobb County piece of property. Let Cobb County deal with it.”

Others opposed to the annexation said Marietta is getting too much of high-density single-family homes, and that they pose stormwater and traffic issues.

But council members barely discussed the matter and asked only a few questions before casting their votes.