Salem Ridge homeowners

Powers Ferry-Terrell Mill development leads off Tuesday Cobb commissioners zoning hearing

by

Powers Ferry-Terrell Mill development, MarketPlace Terrell Mill

If you plan to attend Tuesday morning’s Cobb Board of Commissioners zoning hearing, you need to get there well in advance. The proposed Powers Ferry-Terrell Mill development is the first item on the agenda, and it’s expected to attract a full house.

Two homeowners associations on either side of the Z-12 application by SSP Blue Ridge LLC are urging their members to show up early. The hearing (agenda summary here) starts at 9 a.m. in the 2nd floor meeting room of the Cobb government building at 100 Cherokee St., downtown Marietta.

After more than a year’s worth of delays since the initial filing, the proposed development by Eden Rock Real Estate Partners for what’s being called the MarketPlace at Terrell Mill may finally get a resolution.

The 24 acres at the northwest corner of Powers Ferry and Terrell Mill currently includes Brumby Elementary School and an aging office park and strip shopping center. The proposed $120 million project would include a Kroger superstore, restaurants and retail space, and the most contentious parts of the application, a 298-unit apartment complex and self-storage facility.

The Cobb Planning Commission recommended approval of the application on Feb. 6, but made some significant changes to a last-minute zoning category request by the developer. The board approved rezoning to community retail commercial (CRC) and RM-16.

The latest agenda released on Thursday, the deadline for making any formal changes, didn’t include anything new.

Related coverage

To the Powers Ferry Corridor Alliance, a citizens group that supports the project, the planning board “tweaks” do not make the proposal viable. The organization sent out a notice over the weekend that saying that Z-12 “is not a cinch to be approved. There is a real risk the community could lose this huge opportunity for long-overdue revitalization of its commercial core.”

The group is asking the commissioners to approve the project as the developer submitted, with a request for the planned village community (PVC) designation.

The alliance warned in its message that if the MarketPlace at Terrell Mill project is not approved, “the developers will have no choice but to walk away.”

Eden Rock partner Brandon Ashkouri said at the planning commission hearing that the latest site plan is the 61st version of the project, which has taken more than three years to put together. The relocation of Brumby to Terrell Mill Road next year was the final piece of the puzzle, and that’s where the Kroger store would be located.

The Powers Ferry Corridor Alliance is gathering at the Cool Beans coffee shop (31 Mill Street) near the Marietta Square, from 7:30-8:30 Tuesday morning before the zoning hearing.

The Salem Ridge Homeowners Association represents residents in a condominium complex next to the proposed development, and in particular the apartments and storage facility they say are too dense and too close to their homes.

They’re also urging their members to attend Tuesday’s hearing to protest a project they also say will add too much noise and traffic to a clogged intersection:

“We care and support regulated development. Redevelopment is a necessity. We only ask for the zoning commission to comply with the Powers Ferry Master Plan, established codes/statutes and laws already in force for parcels like MarketPlace at Terrell Mill.

“The developers have been cooperative, yet unless our objections and stipulations are recorded and in writing, we will not be protected.”

The storage facility request will be taken up later in the hearing, and the case number is SLUP-8. Cobb requires self-storage facility requests to be granted special land-use permits, even if they’re part of larger developments.

Another special land-use permit request for another proposed storage facility in East Cobb is on the commissioners agenda Tuesday. SLUP-3 would permit a three-story building on the site of the former Mountain View Elementary School on Sandy Plains Road.

It would be part of mixed-use development approved last fall. Despite community opposition, the self-storage facility was recommended for approval by the planning commission (previous East Cobb News post here).

 

Get Our Free E-Mail Newsletter!

Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!

Cobb Planning Commission votes to hold Terrell Mill Towne Center rezoning case

by
Terrell Mill Towne Center
The Terrell Mill Towne Center, proposed as a major boost for the Powers Ferry corridor, has drawn strong and mixed reaction from nearby residents.

After nearly two hours of discussion that included heated opposition from residents in a nearby townhome complex, the Cobb Planning Commission on Tuesday voted to hold the long-delayed rezoning request for the proposed Terrell Mill Towne Center.

By a 3-2 vote, the Planning Commission—which is an advisory board to the Cobb Board of Commissioners—requested more time to sort out a major, complex application that was filed in January.

Traffic and density issues were the primary concerns raised by Thea Powell, Galt Porter and Skip Gunther, the three planning board members who opposed the proposal to rezone nearly 23 acres at Powers Ferry Road and Terrell Mill Road. The mixed-use project, which would be anchored by a Kroger superstore, was to have gone before Cobb commissioners Dec. 19.

The latest delay will push back a formal vote until at least February, since Cobb zoning cases are not heard in January.

The $200 million Terrell Mill Towne Center (agenda packet item) also would also contain restaurants, retail shops, and most controversially, a 310-unit luxury apartment complex abutting the Salem Ridge townhomes on Terrell Mill Road.

Related coverage:

Cobb Planning Commission Chairman Mike Terry of East Cobb, who represents District 2, where the Terrell Mill Towne Center would be located, was in strong support of the development by Eden Rock Real Estate Partners. So was Judy Williams of District 3 in Northeast Cobb, who said the project “would be good for the neighborhood, but will have to be tweaked.”

While the Powers Ferry Corridor Alliance—formerly known as the Terrell Mill Community Association—overwhelmingly supported the rezoning, Salem Ridge homeowners expressed strong opposition, especially to the residential component they say is excessively dense for the area.

“Why do we have [zoning] codes at all if we are going to ignore them?” asked Amy Patricio, who represented the opposing Salem Ridge residents.

She argued that the multiple variances requested by developers amounted to “taking the code and rewriting it to serve their purposes.”

Although Terry and Garvis Sams, the attorney for the developers, pointed out that the full proposal is suitable under the Cobb future land use plan and Power Ferry Master Plan, it was the residential component and a self-storage facility that opponents objected to the most.

In particular, Patricio said the UC zoning category sought for the apartments—Urban Condominium—was far more dense than should be allowed, and that there were an “egregious” number of variances as part of the project.

Porter, of South Cobb, agreed about the density issue, pointing to the project’s proposed 60 units an acre, as compared to the current nearby maximum of five units an acre.

“This just doesn’t match Salem Ridge or anything else around here,” he said, calling it “the definition of spot zoning.”

Get Our Free E-Mail Newsletter!

Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!

 

Read more