East Cobb Cityhood feasibility study Archives

East Cobb Park summer end — *A proposed City of East Cobb would include parks and recreation in a “city lite” set of services.*

A financial feasibility study for the proposed City of East Cobb was to have been completed by Nov. 1, and the group leading the incorporation effort said the report will be made public next week.

Cindy Cooperman, a spokeswoman for the Committee for East Cobb Cityhood, told East Cobb News that the study would be released next Monday, Nov. 15 and will be made available on the group’s website.

The study was commissioned in July by the committee and was conducted by the Center for State and Local Finance at Georgia State University.

GSU researchers also conducted a feasibility study for the first East Cobb cityhood effort, and in late 2018 concluded that it was financially viable.

The initial effort called for police, fire and community development services.

The revived effort, announced in March, drastically reduced the proposed city of East Cobb boundaries and proposed planning and zoning, code enforcement, parks and recreation and roads and transportation services.

State Rep. Matt Dollar, the East Cobb Republican who sponsored both cityhood bills (the 2019 legislation was eventually abandoned), said in an April virtual town hall meeting that the “hope here is to be revenue neutral,” meaning no millage rate would need to be established to provide those services.

That was the conclusion of a feasibility study released last week for the proposed city of Lost Mountain in West Cobb.

That report, prepared by researchers at the University of Georgia, concluded that that city would raise enough revenues from existing taxes and fees to generate a surplus and wouldn’t have to levy property taxes.

West Cobb legislators are sponsoring a Lost Mountain cityhood bill that would create a city of around 70,000.

Like the renewed East Cobb cityhood effort, Lost Mountain supporters are emphasizing planning and zoning and preserving the suburban nature of the community.

Lost Mountain also would provide parks and recreation and sanitation services.

Preservation interests prompted a cityhood effort in Vinings, where a UGA feasibility study released in October concluded that proposed city of 7,000 was financially viable.

Cityhood bills for those three proposed cities as well as a second cityhood bill for a proposed city of Mableton are expected to be taken up in the 2022 Georgia legislature.

If passed, those bills would call for incorporation referendums in November 2022.

Dollar, who is not seeking re-election next year, has a co-sponsor in State Rep. Sharon Cooper, also an East Cobb Republican.

Cityhood bills also require a Senate sponsor. State Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick, an East Cobb Republican, told East Cobb News recently she would wait to comment on the new cityhood effort until after the feasibility study is released.