The community around Keheley Elementary School maintains something of a tucked-away feel, with winding country-style roads, lushly wooded areas and a mix of single-family home styles on generous lots.
This part of Northeast Cobb still feels like it has some elbow room. If you travel westbound on Keheley Drive, close to where it intersects with Keheley Road, and look off to the right, you’ll see a thick scrub of land that drops down behind trees. A dirt path provides an opening into nearly 26 acres of land.
There are two homes, one built in 1910 and another in 1957, at 4351 and 4371 Keheley Drive, on land that’s otherwise designated for conservation use. The acreage is located within the floodplain and stream buffer associated with Rubes Creek.
That’s where an East Cobb luxury home developer wants to build 51 single-family homes (site plan at left). A request to be heard next week by the Cobb Planning Commission (agenda item packet) is seeking a higher density use than the surrounding neighborhoods.
David Pearson Communities, Inc. has applied for rezoning from R-20 to R-12, which would allow up to three units per acre. Nearby homes are zoned either R-20 or R-15, and there’s plenty of visible community opposition.
Small yellow signs with red lettering pop up intermittently along Keheley Drive and Keheley Road, in front of homes and neighborhood entrances:
“Save Keheley! No Rezoning.”
The parcel in question is in the hands of the estate of Collene Ruggles, who died in 2016.
The Ruggles land previously came up for zoning in 2007, from R-20 to R-15, but it sits undisturbed today, in an area that’s encountering some of the same density issues that have been increasing in East Cobb.
Not far away in Northeast Cobb, land belonging to the estate of another longtime family property owner is also going before the Planning Commission for higher-density zoning.
EAH Acquisitions, Inc., is seeking rezoning from R-30 to R-15 to build 19 homes on 12. 29 acres at the northwest corner of Wigley Road and Jims Road. The titleholder is the estate of Dorothy Henrietta Wigley, who also died in 2016. She was a member of the Wigley family that was a major property owner, including Sweat Mountain and much of the present-day Mountain View area.
While the Wigley application got a recommendation of approval with conditions from the Cobb zoning staff—since R-15 zoning is in effect in nearby and adjacent communities—the Keheley case did not.
In fact, the zoning staff analysis strongly recommends denial of the request. David Pearson Communities wants to build homes with at least 2,500 square feet of space on small lots. Among the variances would be to reduce the distance between residences to 10 feet from the minimum 15 feet.
Not only are other homes in the area not as densely packed, but according to Cobb zoning staff, 12 of the 51 lots in the proposed site plan don’t meet the minimum code required area above the floodplain.
The Cobb zoning staff also pointed out that the rezoning request doesn’t conform with the Cobb County Comprehensive Plan, since the Ruggles property is designated as being in a Low-Density Residential area (LDR), or no more than 2.5 units an acre.
The Cobb Planning Commission meets Wednesday, Nov. 7, at 9 a.m. in the 2nd floor boardroom of the Cobb BOC Building, 100 Cherokee St., in downtown Marietta.
