The Marietta Planning Commission on Tuesday recommended denial of two major rezoning cases in the Powers Ferry Road corridor, but the attorney for the applicants said he will appeal to the City Council next week for a delay.
The advisory planning board voted unanimously in both instances against a mixed-use project, Nexus Gardens, near Powers Ferry Elementary School, and Laurel Park, a townhome project in Cloverdale Heights.
Both projects would be developed by Macauley Investments, an Atlanta real estate developer specializing in mixed-use projects. The properties are owned by Ruben McMullan, a real esate investor with East Cobb ties, and his assorted entities.
Tuesday’s meeting was the first time the requests have been heard publicly after months of delays.
Nearby residents in both communities turned out to speak against the projects (see our weekend story), which they said are incompatible with their communities and would worsen traffic in the congested Powers Ferry area near the South Marietta Parkway.
“This will ruin the lives of everyone in the neighborhood,” said Anna Holiday, a resident of the Meadowbrook neighborhood, which is mostly in unincorporated Cobb.
Kevin Moore, the applicant’s attorney, wanted to table the Nexus Gardens case again after receiving comments from Cobb DOT on a traffic study on Tuesday afternoon. Meadowbrook Drive, the only access point for Nexus Gardens, is located in the county.
He also said Laurel Park, which would consist of 204 homes adjacent to Cloverdale Heights, is “not the plan we want to build, but we are working on it,” including a traffic study in progress.
The seven-member planning commission, however, voted twice against tabling the requests, which were first filed last fall.
The traffic issues stem from limited access to Powers Ferry in both Meadowbrook, which is mostly in Cobb County, and Cloverdale Heights, which is in the city of Marietta.
Nexus Gardens would have apartments, senior living and restaurants on nearly 17 acres, mostly undeveloped and facing Interstate 75. Some of those parcels include 19 single-family homes.
The density of the project calls for two five-story apartment buildings totalling 280 units served by a three-story parking deck, a five-story senior-living building with 160 units, 39 townhomes and restaurants and retail space.
Laurel Park would be accessible via four residential streets in Cloverdale Heights, which residents said would be a traffic nightmare in their community.
“These are small homes, but they are our homes,” said Cloverdale Heights resident Brian Peters, describing his neighbors as “solid, working-class folks.”
Many of them are first-time homebuyers in a neighborhood with homes costing around $200,000.
“Clo-Hi is that American dream, and we feel it’s now under threat,” Peters said, adding that he’s not against development, but “reckless, poorly thought development.”
The land tracts—nearly 17 acres for Nexus Gardens and 30 acres for Laurel Park—are mostly undeveloped and front I-75.
Moore said the land proposed for Nexus Gardens was rezoned by the city for “more intense purposes” in the 1980s, although development plans then fell through.
“You will hear that this doesn’t reflect the neighborhood,” he said. But “this proposal is a far better use than what is currently zoned.”
To say the property should not be developed for a mixed-use purpose, Moore said later, would be tantamount to “taking the owner’s property.”
Lily Reed, a Cloverdale Heights resident, urged the planning commission to consider the “cumulative effects” of both rezoning requests on the community.
James Rosich, who lives near Meadowbrook in the Hamby Acres neighborhood, said due to the lack of a completed traffic study, “there’s no reason [Nexus Gardens] should go forward.”
If it does, he said, “it’s a travesty.”
Among the issues are the close proximity of Meadowbrook Drive to the Powers Ferry-Loop intersection, the traffic impact on Powers Ferry Elementary School and the amount of general traffic that would use a small residential street for access to a large mixed-use project.
“Please deny this,” Rosich said. “They need to start over again.”
Planning commissioners didn’t discuss the Nexus Gardens case before voting unanimously against it, and only one member made brief traffic remarks about the Laurel Park project before the vote to recommend denial.
The Marietta City Council will meet next Wednesday, March 10, to consider the rezonings.
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