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.
Sewell Manor resident Robin Moody
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).
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!
After another standstill over a proposed annexation and rezoning case on Lower Roswell Road that has dragged on for months, the Marietta City Council voted Wednesday to continue the delay.
By a 5-1 vote, the council approved a measure that would “stay” the annexation and rezoning proposals, along with related action to update the city’s future land use plan, for 90 days.
That’s to provide time for all the parties to discuss Cobb County’s objection to the rezoning based on density grounds and possibly to reschedule mediation between the city and county that was called off last month.
The stay was proposed by council member Michelle Cooper-Kelly, whose East Marietta ward would include the 7.46 acres at Lower Roswell and the Loop that Traton Homes wants to develop into 52 townhomes and single-family homes.
Residents in the adjacent Sewell Manor neighborhood in unincorporated Cobb have opposed the proposal, saying it’s too dense and would worsen traffic woes they face daily.
Many of them were on hand in Marietta council chambers Wednesday, bringing yellow “Save East Cobb” signs they have used during their fight.
Because of the proposed density of the project—nearly seven units an acre—the county had the right to object, but didn’t formalize that stance in January until it was too late.
The Marietta council twice delayed voting on the annexation and rezoning, which was recommended for denial by the city planning commission in April.
Last month Cobb commissioner Bob Ott met with Sewell Manor residents about their concerns, and told them there’s nothing legally preventing Marietta from annexing and rezoning the land.
A couple weeks later, another notice went up in Sewell Manor about Wednesday’s agenda item, but some residents said they weren’t sure until the last minute what might transpire.
The only council member voting against the delays on Wednesday was Joseph Goldstein, also of East Marietta, who urged there be public hearings before the 90-day period ends.
Cooper-Kelly’s motion would allow Traton, if nothing else happens, to withdraw its application after 90 days without prejudice, meaning it could refile and restart the annexation and rezoning process.
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!
The green zoning signs fronting the entrance to the Sewell Manor neighborhood have a new date etched in for an annexation and zoning case at Lower Roswell Road and the Loop that residents there have been fighting for months.
After the Marietta City Council twice delayed a vote, and after Cobb commissioners reaffirmed a letter of objection to the annexation, the proposal by Traton Homes to build 52 townhome and single-family units is apparently scheduled to be on the July 10 council agenda.
There’s not an agenda posted yet on the City of Marietta website, and there doesn’t appear to be anything new in the case file. We’ll update with more information.
The city council would act first on annexation before conducting a zoning hearing.
The city and county have been at odds over the case since Sewell Manor residents voiced their objection to the Traton project, on less than eight acres of vacant land.
The county had the right to object to the annexation since the rezoning would come to more than five units an acre, but commissioners didn’t formally ratify their opposition before a January deadline.
The Marietta Planning Commission did hear the case in April and voted to recommend denial of the rezoning.
The Marietta City Council held off on votes in April and May, then asked for mediation, and the county agreed. But commissioner Bob Ott of East Cobb, designated as the county representative, said the city wanted to change the process to something between mediation and formally binding arbitration, and cancelled the talks.
On June 11 commissioners discussed, but took no action, after Ott briefed them about the dispute.
He admitted that there was nothing the county could do to stop the annexation, but said Marietta Mayor Steve “Thunder” Tumlin had indicated the city would not act on the case as long as the county objected.
Sewell Manor residents have put together a flyer to urge their neighbors and others in nearby communities to turn out for the July 10 Marietta council meeting, which starts at 7 p.m.
What they previously labeled a “Save East Cobb campaign” is now being called “Annexation Without Representation.”
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!
The Cobb Board of Commissioners took no action on Tuesday in an annexation dispute with the City of Marietta that has embroiled an East Cobb community for several months.
Instead, commissioners verbally restated a previous objection to a proposed annexation and high-density residential rezoning on Lower Roswell Road and the Loop (background here).
District 2 commissioner Bob Ott (above) represents the Sewell Manor neighborhood and several others nearby in East Cobb who’ve protested a project to build 37 townhomes and 15 single-family homes on less than eight acres.
He said comments last week by Marietta Mayor Steve Tumlin suggest that the “city clearly has stated they’re not moving forward as long as [the county’s] objection letter is in place.”
Both Ott and Cobb County Manager Rob Hosack said an objection letter sent from the county in February is “valid,” although county staff erred in not requesting a formal vote from commissioners.
Hosack admitted county staff missed a deadline for that action, which precluded a request for binding arbitration. He told commissioners a state law allowing counties to object to annexations in high-density zoning cases still applies.
“We indeed have a valid objection,” said Hosack, the former head of the Cobb Community Development Agency. “At the very least the letter needs to remain in place.”
He said county objections can be made if an annexation is tied to a rezoning request seeking more than four units an acre for undeveloped land and five units an acre on redeveloped land.
Hosack also pointed out that he thinks that the county ultimately cannot stop an annexation. The county’s objection, he added, “gives us a seat at at the table” about how annexed land is rezoned and developed.
Traton Homes has reduced its original request from nearly 12 units an acre to 6.95 units an acre. Six of the nine parcels in the property that would be annexed were once part of Sewell Manor, whose homes date back to the 1950s.
Theresa Gernatt
Several Sewell Manor residents and others from nearby communities turned out Tuesday, dressed in yellow, stressing “Unity in Community” and waving yellow signs saying “Save East Cobb.”
They acknowledge that there will eventually be some new development next to where they live but what’s being proposed now isn’t compatible.
“Sometimes progress is having the courage not to change,” said Sewell Manor resident Theresa Gernatt, who said the yellow signifies her community’s “hope and caution.”
She and others repeated previous concerns that Marietta is engaging in a “hostile takeover” by the city.
“We feel this plan is reckless,” said Robin Moody, a Sewell Manor resident who read the names of 30 nearby subdivisions also opposed to the rezoning and annexation.
Their major objections, in addition to density, have been traffic at a busy intersection, as well as what they say is a lack of transparency from the property owner, developer and city.
They urged commissioners to keep the objection letter in place, pass a resolution stating their opposition to the annexation and “reserve their right to a constitutional challenge.”
When commissioner JoAnn Birrell asked “would it hurt” for the board to make a statement with a resolution, Ott and Hosack argued against that, saying it might offer a signal to restart the process.
“By law, the process cannot start over,” Ott said, who added that “there are no changes in the county’s objection.”
Some Sewell Manor residents have put up signs of protest in front of their homes.
At the end of the discussion, many in the audience applauded.
The Marietta City Council has twice tabled a vote on the annexation and rezoning, after the city’s planning commission voted to recommend denial. The city asked the county for mediation, which was to have happened last week, but then asked for a change in that process.
Ott, as the county’s designated mediation party, said he could not consent without the approval of the board, and called off the meeting.
“I feel Cobb County did the best they could do today,” Moody told East Cobb News after the meeting. She also said she was “encouraged by the support of the other commissioners.”
Gernatt said that “we heard a lot of encouraging words today, but from this point forward, we will only believe what our public servants DO.”
We’ll update this story with reaction from the city.
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 commissioner Bob Ott and Sewell Manor resident Theresa Gernatt. (East Cobb News photos by Wendy Parker)
Residents of an East Cobb neighborhood want their county representatives to send a strong message to the City of Marietta about a proposed annexation they’ve been fighting for months.
Cobb commissioner Bob Ott, who represents the Sewell Manor subdivision on Lower Roswell Road at the Loop, said he will offer such a proposal for his colleagues to consider next Tuesday.
It would replace an unratified objection the county made to a high-density residential development that’s being proposed on 7.48 acres right next to Sewell Manor in unincorporated Cobb.
But at a town hall meeting he called on Monday night, Ott reminded those residents that the city holds the power right now to annex six former lots in Sewell Manor and add them to three parcels on Lower Roswell that are already in the city.
“There is no obstacle to annex the land, based on the law,” Ott said to a room of around 100 people at the Sewell Mill Library. The crowd included residents in nearby neighborhoods in an older portion of East Cobb.
He made reference to a state law that allows counties to object to municipal annexations when related rezoning cases reach a certain density threshold.
Traton Homes is proposing to build 37 townhomes and 15 single-family homes on land owned by Ray Boyd, a commercial real estate broker.
That amounts to 6.9 units an acre, above the limit of of four units an acre for previously undeveloped land, and five units on land proposed for redevelopment. (The original site plan called for 64 townhomes, a density of nearly 12 units an acre.)
However, the county objection letter—signed by Ott, commissioner Keli Gambrill and chairman Mike Boyce—was never voted on by the commission. Ott said county staff neglected to include that item on a meeting agenda after Boyd filed a request to annex in January.
Last month, the Marietta City Council was prepared to vote on the annexation and rezoning, but for the second time delayed that action. A mediation session between Cobb and Marietta was scheduled for Wednesday, but Ott called it off because the city was asking for a different process.
“The city ought to show the county a little courtesy,” said James Rosich, who lives in the nearby Hamby Estates neighborhood. “Our county and community have been taken advantage of.”
An urban planner by training, Rosich outlined for the audience Sewell Manor’s objections to the Traton proposal, which includes 15 variances, and what Rosich termed “a hostile approach to annexation.”
For several years, the former commercial properties on Lower Roswell Road have sat vacant, an eyesore entrance to Sewell Manor that’s more than annoyed residents there.
“It looks like a third world country,” said Gernatt, who grew up in Sewell Manor. “The city of Marietta has allowed that to happen over the last decade.”
Boyd previously tried to get Marietta to annex the vacant Sewell Manor lots four years ago, but was denied.
Gernatt said she’s met with laywers who’ve told her the Sewell Manor neighbors should “sue the bejeezus out of everyone. But that’s not what we’re about.”
The main entrance to Sewell Manor on Indian Trail, and a view south along Lower Roswell Road. The empty lot once housed gas station and automotive repair businesses.
Ott said while he agrees with community concerns over traffic and density, the immediate focus should be on the annexation matter.
“You can’t sue until some action is taken,” Ott said.
He said in his 10 years as a commissioner, no other Cobb city has voted to annex land if the entire five-member county commission objected.
That kind of support, he added, “sends a huge message to the city.
“Why would they care about you? You don’t live in the city. Why have they not annexed? Think about that.”
Ott declined to detail what he’s presenting at the commission meeting Tuesday, with news media present at the town hall. Afterward, he told East Cobb News that “I do have some ideas,” but he still would not elaborate.
“They’re not going to be ready for what I’m proposing.”
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!
An update to the story we published Thursday about mediation talks between Cobb County and the City of Marietta about a disputed annexation-rezoning case on Lower Roswell Road and the Loop:
That mediation, scheduled for next Wednesday, has been called off. Also, Cobb commissioner Bob Ott, who was to have represented the county and was scheduled to meet Monday with a small group of nearby residents opposed to the proposal, has opened the meeting to the public in a town hall format.
That word comes from Robin Moody (in photo), a leader of a group of Sewell Manor neighbors who are working to reduce the density and demand other changes from Traton Homes.
The prominent Cobb residential developer wants to build 37 townhomes and 15 single-family homes on 7.48 acres, which the neighbors say is too dense and would add to traffic headaches they already experience.
Some have called it a “Stack-A-Shack” proposal for how close the residences will be built on the property that abuts Sewell Manor.
In a message sent Friday to her neighbors and citizens in nearby communities, Moody said the City of Marietta wanted to change mediation from being overseen by retired Cobb Superior Court Judge James Bodiford to going before another, unspecified judge.
Ott declined, since that change would require approval of the other county commissioners, and he is planning to bring the matter up with his colleagues on June 11.
A Georgia local government law called HB 489 (passed in 1997) allows counties to formally object to annexation and rezoning cases in certain high-density conditions, and sets up terms for arbitration or mediation to settle disputes.
Moody noted the time provided for public comment at commissioners’ meetings and added:
“We are grateful that Cobb County will now hear the viewpoints (at least how Ott explains it) that the community has been voicing since January of this year.”
The Sewell Manor residents live in 1950s-built single-family homes with a density of less than two units an acre. Traton’s proposal is 6.95 units an acre, higher than a threshold of four units an acre as specified in HB 489.
Although the Marietta Planning Commission has recommended denial, the Marietta City Council has never voted on the Traton proposal. It has been pulled twice over the last two months.
Ott’s town hall meeting will be 7 p.m. Monday at the Sewell Mill Library (2051 Lower Roswell Road). Moody said citizens from more than a dozen nearby subdivisions have signed petitions opposed to proposed development.
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!
James Rosich, an urban planner by training, calls the Traton Homes proposal a “stack-a-shack” development. (East Cobb News photos by Wendy Parker)
For several months, residents of an older East Cobb community—proud of their long-standing roots, and embracing those who’ve come to live there more recently—have felt increasingly cut off.
Cut off by increasing congestion at a major intersection. Cut off by vacant commercial and residential properties fronting their neighborhood that have become eyesores.
And, most of all, cut off in a matter between Cobb County and the City of Marietta over a rezoning and annexation request they worry may be settled next week without their input.
UPDATE: The mediation has been called off, and Cobb commissioner Bob Ott will hold a town hall meeting on the matter on Monday. Click here to read more.
For residents of Sewell Manor, a proposed development by Traton Homes for townhomes and urban-style single-family homes is more than just incompatible with their homes.
It’s become what some believe could be a troubling bellwether for the kind of high-density development that they moved there to avoid.
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
A small-town feel
Sewell Manor is “the closest thing to Mayberry that you can find in Cobb County now,” said Theresa Gernatt, who grew up in Sewell Manor and lives there again, as a caregiver for her mother.
The small brick ranch homes that line Indian Trail and Worthington Drive were built in the late 1950s, as what became known as East Marietta suburbanized.
Most of them are valued at less than $200,000 today, bargain prices in highly affluent East Cobb, where new homes are routinely sold for $700,000 and up.
She said she and her neighbors understand the empty lots next to their neighborhood will be redeveloped, and they’re not opposed.
“Change is good,” Gernatt said Wednesday at a meeting she and her neighbors called at the Sewell Mill Library, just down the street on Lower Roswell, and that drew around 50 people, many from nearby subdivisions.
However, she said, “real progress is not always change,” and especially what one of the most powerful residential developers in Cobb County has in mind for their community.
Sewell Manor residents William Warwick and Lindsay Field Penticuff.
The proposal by Traton would plop 37 townhomes and 15 single-family homes on less than eight acres at the northeast corner of Lower Roswell and the Loop.
The land includes three commercial parcels on Lower Roswell annexed by Marietta, as well as property on which six former homes stood in Sewell Manor.
The residential tracts are in unincorporated Cobb County—which Traton is proposing the city also annex—as is the rest of Sewell Manor.
Traton has come down from its initial proposal of 63 townhomes and one single-family home, dropping the density from around 12 units an acre to 6.95.
That’s still above the threshold of a state law that allows counties to object to annexations when rezonings include density of more than 4 units an acre.
When Traton submitted its plans earlier this year, Cobb officials did object. However, they didn’t formalize their opposition until it was almost too late.
Earlier this month, as the Marietta City Council was to vote on the Traton request, the county asked for a delay for mediation.
The city agreed, and they’re scheduled to meet next Wednesday with retired Cobb Superior Court Judge James Bodiford.
While the Sewell Manor residents are temporarily relieved, they don’t think their concerns are being taken seriously.
“This is a city creating a problem for us, after we bought into the county to enjoy,” said Robin Moody, a relative Sewell Manor newcomer, who’s lived there 15 years.
She’s urged her neighbors to lobby Bob Ott, their county commissioner (who’s meeting with them on Monday), and to turn out in force for the mediation hearing.
Sewell Manor resident Robin Moody.
Sewell Manor residents are asking Traton to reduce density down to four units an acre, which is still more than twice the density of their neighborhood.
But that’s hardly all of their objections to a proposal they say runs counter to city and county land use plans and basic rezoning standards.
Tration is asking for 15 variances. They include waiving landscape buffers along Lower Roswell and a waiver to build deceleration and acceleration lanes at the Indian Trail access point.
No traffic plan has been submitted by Traton, another requirement.
Some of the townhouses are only 900 square feet, well under the city’s minimum of 1,400 square feet for townhouses. No square footage sizes have been indicated for the single-family homes.
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
At the intersection, there’s a massive billboard owned by Ray Boyd, the property owner, that Sewell Manor residents want taken down.
They also want minimum open space to be 25 percent, and a 60 percent maximum for impervious services.
“This is not a good site plan,” said James Rosich, who lives close to nearby Sedalia Park Elementary School. “It’s just not.”
Site plan markup
Rosich, who has an urban planning degree from Georgia Tech and governmental planning experience in Florida and North Carolina, dubbed the Traton plan “Stack-A-Shack.”
It’s lingo in his profession, he says, for high-density development jammed especially closely together. There’s not room for school buses to turn around in the new community, nor for residents to place trash for curbside pickup.
He annotated Traton’s plan to incorporate the community’s requests to get it to something they could accept.
Sewell Manor residents’ objections to and recommended changes for the Traton plan. For larger view click here.
Sewell Manor residents say Marietta City Council member Michelle Cooper-Kelly, who represents the potential annexed land, has told them she’s against the project.
So is the Marietta Planning Commission, which voted in March to recommend denial.
That’s the only vote that’s been taken on the yet-unnamed Traton proposal tabled twice by the council.
Setting a trend?
Ott, who will be the county representative at the mediation, has said that Marietta could eventually exercise home rule and rezone and annex as it pleases without Cobb’s blessing.
(East Cobb News has left a message with Ott’s office seeking comment.)
East Cobb residents in other communities said they’re concerned about a precedent, similar to what’s taking place in the Powers Ferry corridor, if the Traton project goes through.
“If we don’t push back now, that’s what’s going to come along Roswell Road and Johnson Ferry Road,” said Hill Wright, who lives in the Spring Creek neighborhood off Holt Road.
“It’s not just about this neighborhood. It’s the first battle in a war” to maintain a traditional suburban setting, he added.
The Indian Trail home of William Warwick, which has been in his wife’s family for more than 40 years. It’s surrounded by land proposed for upscale townhomes and single-family homes.
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!
Residents living in the Sewell Manor neighborhood at Lower Roswell Road and the Loop have scheduled a public meeting for Wednesday to discuss a proposed annexation and rezoning case next to their community that’s going to mediation between Cobb County and the City of Marietta.
The meeting is scheduled for Wednesday at 7 p.m. at the Sewell Mill Library and Cultural Center, just down the road at 2051 Lower Roswell Road.
Citizens living in Sewell Manor have been opposed to a proposal before the Marietta City Council by Traton Homes to build 37 townhomes and 15 single-family detached homes on 7.48 acres at the northeast intersection of Lower Roswell and the Loop.
The rezoning request also requires annexation into the city, since some of that tract is in unincorporated Cobb.
Cobb officials initially objected to the request under a state law governing annexation involving high-density zoning matters.
Traton has come down on its proposal from nearly 12 units an acre to 6.5 an acre. The law’s threshold is 4 units an acre, but the county did not formalize its objection in writing.
The Marietta City Council could have voted anyway, but tabled that vote earlier this month and agreed to mediation with the county.
That process is set to start in June, and Sewell Manor residents want to brief their fellow neighbors on their concerns.
They include additional traffic at an already congested intersection, as well as other aspects of Traton’s site plan.
Sewell Manor homes were built in the 1950s and the neighborhood density is 1.75 units an acre. Some have said they’re not against new development but what Traton is proposing is incompatible with their community.
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!
A controversial rezoning and annexation request on Lower Roswell Road at the Loop was tabled again on Wednesday by the Marietta City Council.
Cobb County officials delivered a letter to city officials earlier on Wednesday, reiterating their objections under a state law that gives counties that right in high-density cases.
Traton Homes wants to build 37 townhomes and 15 single-family residences on 7.48 acres at the northeast intersection of Lower Roswell and the Loop, a plan that residents in an adjacent neighborhood have opposed.
Many living in Sewell Manor are in the county, and they grew concerned when the Marietta City Attorney suggested Tuesday that a vote could go ahead because Cobb commissioners hadn’t voted on formalizing the objection.
At a town hall meeting elsewhere in East Cobb Wednesday, Cobb commissioner Bob Ott said the council tabled the request, and that he had spoken to Marietta Mayor Thunder Tumlin.
The parties “have agreed to follow the steps of HB 489,” Ott said, referring to the state law in question. That allows counties to enter mediation when there’s such a dispute.
The law kicks in when a city wants to annex unincorporated land that would be zoned for more than four residential units an acre. Traton’s initial request was for more than 11 units an acre, but it’s revised it to 6.5.
That still didn’t set well with Sewell Manor residents who think the project not only remains too dense (their neighborhood density is 1.75 units an acre), but that they also believe will contribute to traffic issues at a clogged intersection.
Ott said the mediation process would include going back to county commissioners, but the possibility looms that the city could annex the land under Georgia home rule provisions.
The property includes three tracts of land already part of the city that front Lower Roswell, and six residential parcels that were once part of Sewell Manor, a community of small homes built in the 1950s.
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!
Traton Homes wants to build 57 three-story townhomes, similar to what’s above, on a cramped corner of Lower Roswell Road and the North Marietta Parkway.
A proposed townhome project on Lower Roswell Road that includes an annexation request and is opposed by nearby residents in unincorporated East Cobb has been tabled by the Marietta City Council.
The council announced the latest delay at its agenda work session Wednesday, and pushed the item back to May.
The developer, Traton Homes, wants to build 37 townhomes and 15 single-family detached residences at Roswell Road and the South Marietta Parkway, and is seeking rezoning from residential (R-20) and community activity center (CAC) to Planned Residential Development Single Family (PRD-SF).
The application is being fought on density and traffic grounds.
The council delay comes a week after the Marietta Planning Commission voted 4-2 to recommend denial of Traton Homes’ request, which covers 7.48 acres. Three of the parcels in the tract are already in the city and are zoned for commercial use—they once were sites for automotive repair shops and a recycling business—and six other lots were once part of a single-family subdivision that’s in the county.
The neighborhood is Sewell Manor, which dates back to the 1950s and features small ranch homes. Residents there have said the project is too intensified for their community, and already-bad traffic will be made worse with a single point of entry on Indian Trail.
Traton, one of the largest homebuilders in metro Atlanta, has come down on its original proposal, which was for 63 townhomes and one single-family home.
What Traton has in mind for the 15 single-family homes.
The developer filed a last-minute revision on April 1, the day before the Planning Commission hearing (see map above, and click here to view the case file), and included a site plan and requests for a 15 varianc
The variances include no acceleration or deceleration lane on Lower Roswell, and a reduction in the minimum greenspace requirement of 25 percent to 21 percent. That open space is more than the initial request, which was for 12 percent, but is tucked away in a back portion of the assembled property.
Traton first filed the application for consideration in February, but it was also opposed by Cobb County officials, also for density reasons.
The initial request had the project at 8.56 unites an acre, and the revised plan calls for a density of under seven units an acre.
Cobb officials said in their objection letter to the city that current nearby residential density is only 1.75 units an acre, and pointed to a citing a 2004 state law limiting newly annexed land to a maximum of four units an acre.
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!
Traton Homes has reduced the number of townhomes it wants to build on a corner of Lower Roswell Road and the South Marietta Parkway, but some living in the adjoining Sewell Manor neighborhood are still opposed to the project.
The home builder delayed a rezoning and annexation request with the city of Marietta last month (see previous ECN coverage here), and has submitted the new plans ahead of Tuesday’s Marietta Planning Commission meeting.
Traton’s request is for the Planned Residential Development Single Family (PRD-SF) zoning category, and the land is adjacent to smaller, older single-family homes in unincorporated Cobb.
The original plans called for 63 townhomes and a single-family home on 7.48 acres. The number of townhomes now is 52, but William Watkins, who lives in Sewell Manor, said that other issues with the project remain along with density, including traffic access, short driveway lengths and a lack of preserving natural surroundings.
Watkins lives on Indian Trail, in one of two homes that’s directly fronting the land area. It includes three parcels of former commercial property in the city of Marietta, and six parcels in Cobb that were part of Sewell Manor, which dates back to the 1950s and 1960s.
The proposed density of the revised townhome project would be nearly seven units an acre, down from 8.56.
“There is no reason to annex residential lots into the City of Marietta to force high-density housing into a low density neighborhood,” Watkins said.
The three city parcels were annexed by Marietta in 1998. They formerly housed automotive businesses but were torn down.
The planning board meets at 6 p.m. Tuesday with a work session, followed by its business meeting, where it will make recommendations. The Marietta City Council will make a final decision on April 10.
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!
