Marietta City Council

Lower Roswell rezoning case withdrawn as Marietta deadline passes

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Lower Roswell annexation/rezoning

A contentious rezoning application on Lower Roswell Road filed by a prominent Cobb homebuilder appears to be dead for now, as well as annexation into the city of Marietta.

Rusty Roth, the city’s development director, notified residents of the Sewell Manor neighborhood on Wednesday that Traton Homes had had not filed anything new after the Marietta City Council voted in July to give the developer a 90-day “stay.”

That 90-day period ended on Wednesday, and Roth said the request was not included on Thursday’s council agenda.

In his note, Roth wrote that without the applicant “giving written notice to reactivate the stayed motions . . . the actions shall be dismissed without prejudice.”

That means that Traton could refile the request at any time.

In a note to her neighbors, Sewell Manor resident Robin Moody, who led the fight against the rezoning and annexation, thanked community leaders, media outlets, Cobb commissioner Bob Ott and “the City of Marietta for being reasonable.”

The Marietta-based Traton had proposed building 39 townhomes and 13 detached homes on less than eight acres at Lower Roswell Road and the South Marietta Parkway, after asking Marietta to annex the land.

That property includes six parcels that once were part of the Sewell Manor in unincorporated Cobb. Three other parcels that front Lower Roswell Road were annexed into Marietta several years ago.

Residents there said the project would be too dense and would add to existing traffic problems in  their community. In addition, Traton did not submit a traffic plan and included 15 variances in its request.

The density of the project allowed Cobb elected officials to lodge an official objection under a state home rule law, but the county development staff didn’t meet a January deadline for having county commissioners formalize that objection.

Robin Moody, Sewell Manor resident
Sewell Manor resident Robin Moody

The Marietta Planning Commission voted to recommend denial of the rezoning in April, then the council delayed a vote the first time the matter appeared on its agenda.

In June, Ott met with Sewell Manor neighbors at a town hall meeting and scheduled mediation between the city and the county to resolve the dispute.

But the city called off the mediation, and another zoning notice went up in Sewell Manor for the July council meeting.

At that meeting, council member Michelle Cooper-Kelly, who represents that area of the city, stipulated in her motion for a 90-day delay a provision for a withdrawal without prejudice by Traton.

“We do all hope that should this matter be taken up again, that everyone will band together again,” Moody said in her note Thursday. “Please stay positive and let’s say unified!”

She said Sewell Manor residents will have what they call a “Unity of Community” meeting Nov. 1 at the Sewell Mill Library (2051 Lower Roswell Road).

 

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Lower Roswell rezoning/annexation request tabled again; mediation looms

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A controversial rezoning and annexation request on Lower Roswell Road at the Loop was tabled again on Wednesday by the Marietta City Council.

Cobb County officials delivered a letter to city officials earlier on Wednesday, reiterating their objections under a state law that gives counties that right in high-density cases.

Traton Homes wants to build 37 townhomes and 15 single-family residences on 7.48 acres at the northeast intersection of Lower Roswell and the Loop, a plan that residents in an adjacent neighborhood have opposed.

Many living in Sewell Manor are in the county, and they grew concerned when the Marietta City Attorney suggested Tuesday that a vote could go ahead because Cobb commissioners hadn’t voted on formalizing the objection.

At a town hall meeting elsewhere in East Cobb Wednesday, Cobb commissioner Bob Ott said the council tabled the request, and that he had spoken to Marietta Mayor Thunder Tumlin.

The parties “have agreed to follow the steps of HB 489,” Ott said, referring to the state law in question. That allows counties to enter mediation when there’s such a dispute.

The law kicks in when a city wants to annex unincorporated land that would be zoned for more than four residential units an acre. Traton’s initial request was for more than 11 units an acre, but it’s revised it to 6.5.

That still didn’t set well with Sewell Manor residents who think the project not only remains too dense (their neighborhood density is 1.75 units an acre), but that they also believe will contribute to traffic issues at a clogged intersection.

Ott said the mediation process would include going back to county commissioners, but the possibility looms that the city could annex the land under Georgia home rule provisions.

The property includes three tracts of land already part of the city that front Lower Roswell, and six residential parcels that were once part of Sewell Manor, a community of small homes built in the 1950s.

 

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Lower Roswell townhome project delayed again in Marietta

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Lower Roswell townhome project
Traton Homes wants to build 57 three-story townhomes, similar to what’s above, on a cramped corner of Lower Roswell Road and the North Marietta Parkway.

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.

 

Lower Roswell townhome project

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.

Lower Roswell townhome projecg
What Traton has in mind for the 15 single-family homes.

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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