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.
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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