The Cobb Planning Commission on Tuesday recommended approval of a rezoning request for a car wash near Bells Ferry Elementary School that would allow room to preserve an 1840s-era home on the property (see previous post here).
The board voted 4-0 to send the request for neighborhood retail commercial (NRC) and low-rise office (LRO) rezoning to the Cobb Board of Commissioners, which will hold a zoning hearing June 20. Planning Commission member Michael Hughes was absent Tuesday.
Parks Huff, an attorney for the Medford Family Limited Partnership, the property owners, said the car wash would be located on the NRC portion of the two-acre site at Bells Ferry Road and Barrett Parkway.
The LRO designation could be used to accommodate the house if it were to stay on the land.
The case has been delayed as the applicant and historic preservation interests continued discussions that have been ongoing for years.
In a May 19 stipulation letter, Huff suggested the split zoning as a means to keep the house on the land.
In her motion to recommend approval Planning Commissioner Deborah Dance was skeptical of the twin zoning categories, and wanted some clarity on what would happen to the LRO land if the home were removed.
He suggested that it could be used for common greenspace, such as a pocket park.
Tommy’s Express by Northgate is proposing a 15,000-square-foot car wash at an intersection that’s surrounded by commercial development, including a Barnes and Noble and Publix.
Cobb Landmarks, an historic preservation non-profit, has been talking with the landowner for four years about finding a way to preserve the McAfee House, which was a homestead that served as a Union general’s headquarters during the Civil War.
Trevor Beemon, Cobb Landmarks’ executive director, told the Planning Commission Tuesday that his organization wants to relocate the house, saying it’s not ideal to serve as a cultural center, although there is some community support for keeping it there.
He said Cobb Landmarks, the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation and the Cobb Preservation Commission could be conveyed a deed for preservation purposes.
He said he’s meeting this week with the Georgia Trust, which could put a preservation easement on the land surrounding the home, then make repairs and find “suitable purpose” and possibly a new location.
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