A proposed townhome project on Lower Roswell Road that includes an annexation request and is opposed by nearby residents in unincorporated East Cobb has been tabled by the Marietta City Council.
The council announced the latest delay at its agenda work session Wednesday, and pushed the item back to May.
The developer, Traton Homes, wants to build 37 townhomes and 15 single-family detached residences at Roswell Road and the South Marietta Parkway, and is seeking rezoning from residential (R-20) and community activity center (CAC) to Planned Residential Development Single Family (PRD-SF).
The application is being fought on density and traffic grounds.
The council delay comes a week after the Marietta Planning Commission voted 4-2 to recommend denial of Traton Homes’ request, which covers 7.48 acres. Three of the parcels in the tract are already in the city and are zoned for commercial use—they once were sites for automotive repair shops and a recycling business—and six other lots were once part of a single-family subdivision that’s in the county.
The neighborhood is Sewell Manor, which dates back to the 1950s and features small ranch homes. Residents there have said the project is too intensified for their community, and already-bad traffic will be made worse with a single point of entry on Indian Trail.
Traton, one of the largest homebuilders in metro Atlanta, has come down on its original proposal, which was for 63 townhomes and one single-family home.
The developer filed a last-minute revision on April 1, the day before the Planning Commission hearing (see map above, and click here to view the case file), and included a site plan and requests for a 15 varianc
The variances include no acceleration or deceleration lane on Lower Roswell, and a reduction in the minimum greenspace requirement of 25 percent to 21 percent. That open space is more than the initial request, which was for 12 percent, but is tucked away in a back portion of the assembled property.
Traton first filed the application for consideration in February, but it was also opposed by Cobb County officials, also for density reasons.
The initial request had the project at 8.56 unites an acre, and the revised plan calls for a density of under seven units an acre.
Cobb officials said in their objection letter to the city that current nearby residential density is only 1.75 units an acre, and pointed to a citing a 2004 state law limiting newly annexed land to a maximum of four units an acre.
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