RaceTrac delays rezoning request on NE Cobb historic site Archives

NE Cobb rezoning historic preservation efforts

An update to a story we posted last month about the site of the former McAfee House in Northeast Cobb:

RaceTrace has received a continuance for a rezoning request for a gas station and convenience store at that northwest intersection of Bells Ferry Road and Barrett Parkway.

The request to rezone the 2.009 acres at 2595 Bells Ferry Road and across from Bells Ferry Elementary School was to have had its first hearing Tuesday before the Cobb Planning Commission.

But Cobb Zoning Division Manager John Pederson announced without comment at the start of the meeting that the case was being continued to September.

According to the filings (you can read them here), RaceTrac will be asking for the land to be rezoned to Neighborhood Activity Center (NAC). The fuel station and convenience store would be open 24/7, according to the filings.

RaceTrac also is seeking variances to waive the rear setback from 30 feet to eight feet and to increase the maximum amount of impervious surface from 70 to 74 feet.

Cobb Zoning Staff recommended approval without variances (you can read the staff analysis here).

The McAfee House, which dates to the 1840s, was the headquarters for Union Gen. Kenner Garrard, whose cavalry troops guarded the Noonday Creek valley after Northern troops seized Big Shanty in June 1864, in the run-up to the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain.

Earlier this year the house was relocated by preservationists to Cherokee County. In 2023, a car wash was proposed for the land, owned by the Medford Family LP, and the Cobb Planning Commission recommended approval. But the request was withdrawn by the applicant due to what it said were other business obligations.

Another Northeast Cobb case that was to have beem heard Tuesday also has been continued to September.

It’s a request by Little Sunshine’s Playhouse to rezone two acres at Sandy Plains Road and Trickum Road for a 12,330-square-foot day care center (you can read the filings here).

The two land parcels fronting Sandy Plains Road are residentially zoned and have older homes on them, and are surrounded by other residential properties.

It’s also across the corner from a CVS store and near a preschool on Trickum Road. Parks Huff, the applicant’s attorney, asked for the continuance in a letter to the Cobb Zoning Office last week until September.