The Cobb Board of Commissioners will hold a final public hearing and is scheduled to vote Tuesday morning on proposed sweeping changes to the county’s ordinance pertaining to sexually oriented businesses.
Commissioners also will are slated to adopt the Johnson Ferry-Shallowford master plan that’s been two years in the making.
The meeting begins at 9 a.m. Tuesday in the second floor board room of the Cobb government building, 100 Cherokee St., in downtown Marietta.
Socially-distanced seating will be followed for those attending in person. The meeting also will be streamed on the county’s Facebook page, YouTube Channel and public access channel CobbTV, which also can be seen on Comcast Cable 23.
The full meeting agenda can be found here.
Two of the mandated three public hearings for the proposed sex shop changes have been conducted, but no verbal comments have been submitted.
The code amendments were proposed by East Cobb commissioner Bob Ott after a Tokyo Valentino store opened on Johnson Ferry Road in June in a former Mattress Firm location, without needing rezoning or any special permitting.
(You can read through the proposed code amendments here. Reader discretion is advised, since there are some explicit descriptions of sexual acts, body parts and devices.)
The new ordinance would restrict where sex shops could be located, both in terms of zoning categories and locations, limiting them to industrial areas.
The changes also would require sexually oriented businesses to get a special business license and employees would also have to get individual permits to work in them.
The aim is to combat what a lawyer consulting with the Cobb County Attorney’s office calls the “adverse secondary effects” of sexually oriented businesses, including crime and loitering, to nearby areas.
After multiple public meetings and written feedback, Cobb government staff released a draft of the Johnson Ferry-Shallowford master plan proposal last summer.
The process has been similar to the Johnson Ferry Design Guidelines and the Powers Ferry Master Plan in East Cobb in recent years.
The recommended JOSH master plan, proposed after more than two years of public meetings and input, would keep the highly residential area as it is, in terms of the balance of development.
Other parts of the plan pertain to traffic improvements, community facilities, recreation and stormwater management in an area with many streams and lakes.
The proposal also includes options for the redevelopment of the southwest corner of Johnson Ferry and Shallowford and around Maddox Lake.
That’s a 30-acre assemblage for rezoning that went before the Cobb Board of Commissioners as a proposed townhome and single-family residential development before the request was withdrawn in early 2017.
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