Sprayberry Crossing rezoning delay Archives

Sprayberry Crossing virtual town hall

For the third time, the Sprayberry Crossing rezoning request is being delayed.

Cobb Zoning Staff is continuing the case, which was to have gone before the Cobb Planning Commission on Tuesday, to Dec. 1.

When the case was delayed last month, the reason cited was that a new site plan was in the works. The Sprayberry Crossing project would include 61,500 square feet of office and retail space (30,000 for a major grocer), 178 apartments, 122 senior-living apartments and 50 townhomes on more than 17 acres.

There are no changes shown in a preliminary agenda item or in any case folders with the Cobb Zoning Office. The continuance is being made at the request of the developer, Atlantic Realty Acquisitions Inc., as those proposed revisions are continuing.

Shane Spink of Sprayberry Crossing Action, a group of residents who’ve been pushing for redevelopment of the blighted shopping center, said “we have not had any conversations or heard from for the developer for many months so we are not privy to what those revisions may be or any other reason for the delays.”

Atlantic Realty is seeking a rezoning category called redevelopment overlay district (ROD), for the first time since it became a category in 2006.

The ROD use allows for redevelopment of blighted properties, and specified that any development would not set a precedent for the surrounding area.

But there’s been some opposition to apartments and some have questioned whether they’re allowed in the ROD category, citing stipulations approved by the Cobb Board of Commissioners for that specific property in 2006.

The December zoning meetings will be the last until February 2021, since zoning cases are not heard in Cobb County in the month of January.

Kevin Moore, an attorney for Atlantic Residential, sent a letter on Wednesday to the Cobb Zoning Office asking for a continuance from the September calendar to October. Moore wrote that the delay “will allow additional time to continue working through concerns and questions expressed by area residents and homeowner representatives and present proposed agreeable stipulations.”

Continuance requests are generally granted by staff as long as they come at least a week before public hearings. The Cobb Planning Commission was scheduled to hear the Sprayberry Crossing case on Sept. 1.

Atlantic Residential wants to build 61,500 square feet of office and retail space (30,000 for a major grocer), 178 apartments, 122 senior-living apartments and 50 townhomes on more than 17 acres.

The developer also wants to build an open-air entertainment and food hall and incorporate walking trails and greenspace around an existing family cemetery.

The proposal is seeking a rezoning category called redevelopment overlay district (ROD), for the first time since it became a category in 2006.

Earlier this month Cobb Commissioner JoAnn Birrell held a virtual town hall providing information about the zoning process and the Sprayberry Crossing details in particular.

She told East Cobb News on Thursday that “I’m receiving emails both for and against the proposal. Keeping a tally.”

Many residents have pushed for an overhaul of the long-blighted retail center that’s there now—the property has been on the county’s redevelopment list.

But others are concerned about apartments going up in a community of single-family homes and additional traffic in the Sandy Plains and Piedmont Road corridor.

The ROD designation would mean that any development contained within does not set a precedent for the area surrounding a property that may be zoned that way.

At least 10 percent of the housing units in an ROD must be set aside for residents making no more than 80 percent of an area’s average median income.