A few more details about North Point Ministries’ plans for a church and townhome project at the Johnson Ferry-Shallowford intersection have been posted in the Cobb Zoning Office filings on the application, which is scheduled to be heard next Tuesday by the Cobb Planning Commission.
The 33 acres sits on land owned by prominent attorney Fred Hanna and his wife’s outreach ministry, and which they tried to assemble for a residential project in 2016 that was withdrawn.
North Point is proposing a 4-story building for what it’s calling East Cobb Church with close to 125,000 square feet, including a sanctuary seating capacity of nearly 1,300, according to the revised filing.
East Cobb Church is the seventh congregation overall and the first in Cobb County for North Point Ministries, which is based in Alpharetta and was founded by Andy Stanley. He’s the son of Charles Stanley, the retired longtime pastor at First Baptist Church in Buckhead.
North Point’s campuses in Alpharetta and Buckhead have sanctuary seating capacities of around 3,000.
The new East Cobb congregation was formed in January and has been meeting at Eastside Baptist Church on Lower Roswell Road.
The East Cobb Church building (in the top left corner of the site plan above) would have a parking deck—details still not revealed—fronting Shallowford and a parking lot along Johnson Ferry.
The Cobb Zoning Office has done its analysis, and is recommending a denial, for traffic, density, land-use and other reasons.
For starters, staff analyst Jeannie Peyton concludes the the proposal doesn’t permit a use “that is suitable in the view of use and development of adjacent and nearby properties. The property is in an area with commercial and lower density residential uses.”
The application includes 125 townhomes located in the back of the property assemblage, bisected by Waterfront Drive, which has access from Johnson Ferry and connects to the Johnson Ferry Estates subdivision.
Nearby residential properties are zoned for R-20 single-family use, while the townhomes, proposed for the RM-8 zoning designation, would come in at a density of 11.55 units an acre.
The staff is recommending density of no more than 5 units an acre. The rezoning request calls for townhomes of at least 1,800 square feet, but doesn’t indicate a price range.
North Point has not filed a traffic study, which staff is recommending, and the proposal to close off Waterfront Drive also was noted by Peyton as a concern.
Capacity at nearby schools—Pope HS, Hightower Trail MS and Shallowford Falls ES—also would be negatively affected by the townhomes, according to the staff analysis.
Above all, Peyton wrote, the application doesn’t conform to the county’s comprehensive land-use plan.
“The property is delineated in LDR and NAC future land use categories,” the report concluded. “The requested zoning districts are not consistent with the LDR and NAC future land use designations. Staff has concerns about how this fits with the recently adopted JOSH study.”
That’s the Johnson Ferry-Shallowford Master Plan that was approved in September after a community process of more than two years.
Another major item in East Cobb that was to have been on the December zoning calendar is being delayed again.
The Sprayberry Crossing case, which first was scheduled for September, has been continued ever since then.
The Cobb Zoning Staff has continued the application once more, until February. Zoning cases are not heard in Cobb County in January.
Related stories
- ‘Nexus Garden’s project proposed for Loop-Powers Ferry area
- Land owners: East Cobb church plans ‘good for the community’
- Johnson Ferry-Shallowford proposal: Church, townhomes
- Wesley Chapel Road rezoning case gets final approval
- Johnson Ferry-Shalloword master plan adopted by commissioners
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