East Cobb subdivision to get street lights

As far as routine business goes with the Cobb Board of Commissioners, approving neighborhood requests for street lights is as routine as it gets.

When at least 75 percent of a subdivision’s residents sign a petition in favor of pursuing a request for a street light district, that request typically gets added to the commissioners’ consent agenda.

There were four such requests on Tuesday’s consent agenda in various parts of the county.

But for an East Cobb subdivision whose residents include some who’ve wanted street lights for decades, a public hearing was called.

There was some opposition from homeowners living in the Brookcliff subdivision, located off Old Canton Road north of Sewell Mill Road, and a public meeting was requested.

Several others turned out to voice their support for the Brookcliff Street Light District, which would assess a monthly street light service charge for homeowners after the lights are installed by Cobb DOT.

Commissioners voted 5-0 with little discussion to approve the request, but Commissioner JoAnn Birrell noted the novelty of the event, which also was discussed at an agenda work session on Monday.

She said in her more than 12 years in office, she doesn’t recall such a hearing over street lights.

The public hearing and ensuing conversation Tuesday spanned more than a half-hour.

Brookcliff opened in the early 1980s and comprises 155 homes, which are valued in the $400,000 range and above.

It’s a neighborhood of rolling hills straddling Sewell Mill Creek to the north. Like many East Cobb subdivision, it has a formal homeowners association with mandatory dues for homeowners who must abide by legally binding requirements and covenants.

Brookcliff also has a swim/tennis facility and other regular activities, such as a garden club and book club.

What Brookcliff doesn’t have are sidewalks and street lights. Some residents have been eager for the latter for almost as long as they have lived there.

Walt Strother, one of the original homeowners of Brookcliff, said during the hearing that trying to get street lights “was never a spur of the moment decision or effort. For the better part of the last 40 years, several marginal attempts have been made, most recently 20 years ago.”

But ineffective HOA leadership and organization undermined those attempts, Strother said.

Three years ago, he added, “there was a collective enough is enough,” beginning a 27-month journey to making a formal application.

In a survey it sent out over the street light issue, the Brookcliff Property Owners Association said 133 homeowners approved.

That’s 85 percent in response to the question “What can we do to make Brookcliff a better place to live?”

Strother said the response “was immediate and overwhelming. Street lights.”

He noted that Cobb officials in the late 1970s expressed a desire for all neighborhoods to have street lights.

The Brookcliff POA has collected $45,778 in fees from residents to be forwarded to Cobb DOT, which will install poles and lights.

Residents will pay $9.80 a month for 36 months for installation and upfront fees, then will be billed $3.80 a month after that by the Cobb County Water System.

One of his Brookcliff neighbors, Mike Gault, moved there in 1996, and said “Brookcliff has always been an incredibly dark” neighborhood.

He said when he first moved there, he would walk his black Lab at night after work and spent a lot of time dodging cars.

Gault said the lack of street lights also has been an issue with school bus stops in the winter, with shorter daylight hours.

Cindy Krakowski, a Brookcliff homeowner, was opposed to the new street light district, saying the HOA doesn’t have the authority to use money collected for swimming and tennis use, and claimed the organization was in the red by $54,000 this year.

“They knew if they had to ask every homeowner in the neighborhood for $300 for this initiative, they wouldn’t have gotten 75 percent of the votes,” she said.

Mike Kelly, the current Brookcliff POA president, said the body has met the street light requirements and that it properly followed by-laws in doing so.

In referring to Krakowski’s claims, he said “disengagement from the process is not an excuse” and that the POA reached out extensively to residents for feedback, communication and meetings.

He said the $45,788 sum represents the highest cash balance in the POA’s history and in a slide he showed during the hearing, indicated it would be ahead of budget after paying for the street lights.

“There is no diversion of funds,” said Kelly, noting that the street light request was included as a line-item in the POA budget. “There’s no question there’s a mandate from Brookcliff.”

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