Sprayberry Crossing rezoning case continued to November

Sprayberry Crossing rezoning

For the second time, the Sprayberry Crossing rezoning case is being continued.

Atlantic Realty Acquisitions LLC, an Atlanta-based apartment developer that is proposing a mixed-use project on the grounds of the downtrodden Sprayberry Crossing retail center, asked for the continuance until November.

The case, initially filed for the September zoning calendar, was to have been heard Tuesday by the Cobb Planning Commission.

(A summary of Tuesday’s meeting agenda can be found here.)

Another site plan is in the works for the Sprayberry Crossing project, which would include 61,500 square feet of office and retail space (30,000 for a major grocer), 178 apartments, 122 senior-living apartments and 50 townhomes on more than 17 acres.

The developer also wants to build an open-air entertainment and food hall and incorporate walking trails and greenspace around an existing family cemetery.

Atlantic Residential is seeking a rezoning category called redevelopment overlay district (ROD), for the first time since it became a category in 2006.

The ROD use allows for redevelopment of blighted properties, and specified that any development would not set a precedent for the surrounding area.

Residents in the Sprayberry Crossing area have organized to urge redevelopment for years, and have been working with Atlantic Residential, which conducted a Zoom town hall meeting in August.

But opponents have objected to the apartment units, saying they’re incompatible with a community that’s overwhelmingly made up of neighborhoods with single-family homes.

More recently, questions have arisen about whether apartments can be included in the Sprayberry Crossing project at all.

The minutes of the Cobb Board of Commissioners’ April 27, 2006 meeting reflect a 4-0 vote to include ROD stipulations specifically pertaining to the Sandy Plains/East Piedmont corridor in the county’s comprehensive land-use plan.

(You can read those here, on the last two pages).

Those stipulations include limiting residential development to no more than four units an acre, and to no more than 60 percent of a proposal’s land use.

The majority of the Sprayberry Crossing’s proposal is residential, and the 350 proposed living units on the 17-acre property would come to 20.5 units an acre.

In addition, the stipulations limit building height to 35 feet; the current Sprayberry Crossinng site plan calls for two five-story buildings that would exceed that height.

The only commissioner not to vote on those measures, ironically enough, was the late Tim Lee, then the District 3 representative for the Sandy Plains/East Piedmont area, and who later became the county chairman.

Tim Carini, leader of a Facebook group opposing apartments at Sprayberry Crossing, wrote in a letter to planning and county commissioners last month that those stipulations must stand, even though they were not included in the 2007 Comprehensive Plan.

He said that was an error since there wasn’t a vote by commissioners to remove the stipulations.

“The residents of this area worked diligently with the BOC in 2006 to create a smart plan for this area, much like the residents who worked with the BOC on the Johnson Ferry-Shallowford master plan recently,” Carini wrote in a letter dated Sept. 17, before the latest continuance was requested. “A vote approving ROD-1 will diminish the trust Cobb County residents have for their elected officials.”