MARIETTA - At the request of City Councilman Van Pearlberg, the council postponed for 30 days a request by the owner of the Manget at Historic Marietta development to build seven attached townhomes in place of a proposed 10-unit condo building.

The owner of the development, BB&T, had asked for council to approve the request at its Wednesday council meeting, but Pearlberg said neighborhood residents needed more information.

"One of their concerns is that they felt that they've not been aware of what the changes were, and they wanted to be informed," Pearlberg said during Monday's Committee of the Whole meeting.

On Feb. 24, Mitch Paulk, with Land Engineering, Inc., asked the council on behalf of BB&T for permission to build seven attached townhomes in place of where a 10-unit condo building was approved to go. The bank also wants the city to approve the final plan on the alreadybuilt eight-unit condo building to allow for the sale of those units to move forward.

The difference between a condo and townhome is that with a condo, owners don't typically own the land, but simply own the space, sharing the property with the rest of the condo owners. With a townhome, the owner owns the land beneath the building, said Brian Binzer, city development services director.

The 6.75-acre first phase of what would ultimately have been an $87.6 million Manget development was the only phase that got off the ground before the recession hit. The development currently has an empty eight-unit condo building, 12 single-family detached homes and 14 attached townhomes developed by Cumming-based Hedgewood Homes. In September 2008, the property was foreclosed on and BB&T gained control of the property from Hedgewood.

But before the council will grant the bank's request, a number of problems have to be fixed, such as how four of the single-family homes on Frasier Street were built. By building them too close to the road, the steps leading from the raised homes down to the sidewalk extend onto city right of way, in some cases by three to four feet, Binzer said. Builders also failed to leave a strip of grass between the curb and sidewalk for the planting of trees, making it difficult to comply with the canopy effect approved in the landscaping plan.

The residents are worried, Binzer said.

"They have concerns about the long term. What's going to happen? Is BB&T going to sell the property or what are they going to do when they sell it? Are they going to maintain the same level of quality?" Binzer said.

Council members such as Philip Goldstein and the Rev. Anthony Coleman said they expected an official from BB&T with actual negotiating power, rather than just the project's engineer, to appear at a council meeting if it wanted the project to move forward.

In other business, Mayor Steve Tumlin is proposing changes to the way the City Council operates. Presently, each month the council starts off with a series of committee meetings, followed by a Committee of the Whole meeting, followed a pre-council meeting the hour before the official council meeting takes place. Up until now, only the council meeting is held in the council chambers and televised.

The committee meetings, known as the COW meetings, and pre-council meetings have all taken place in the cramped fourth floor conference room of City Hall. Tumlin isn't proposing changes to the committee meetings. But he's already brought the Committee of the Whole meeting down from the fourth floor to the council chambers, where there's plenty of room for the public to watch.

"It's more to be citizen friendly. Here, we're facing people, we have microphones, and we're less distracted," Tumlin said.

Tumlin is also proposing changing the names of the Committee of the Whole and the pre-council meetings. The problem is that neither of those two meetings is spelled out in the city's code.

"It is not in city code as to defining who can call it, as to defining whether or not you use Robert's Rules of Order, whether or not who presides over it," Tumlin said.

Not only is the COW and pre-council meeting not in the city code, the mayor does not have his tie-breaking vote or veto power in those meetings, he said.

"Basically, the mayor had neither because there were no rules," Tumlin said.

Tumlin said he's spoken with the chairman of Cobb's Legislative Delegation, state Sen. John Wiles (R-Kennesaw), to request that the legislature amend the city code by changing the COW and pre-council meetings into work sessions.

"In essence, we've kind of joined the rest of the world. We've basically gone to a work session, and a work session basically means a city council meeting that has a limited agenda and that's pretty common," Tumlin said, noting that the Cobb Board of Commissioners and Marietta school board hold work sessions.

The official council meeting, like the committee meetings, will remain unchanged, he said.

Tumlin said his problem with the COW meeting goes beyond just the fact that it limits the mayor's authority.

"It was who can call a COW meeting," he said. "The finance committee could call a Committee of the Whole. Parks and Rec could. It was something that just did not have proper order. There was nothing in the code to tell you what a quorum was. Nothing to guide you of what could be on the agenda and what could be discussed. Basically it looked like a council meeting, it sounded like a council meeting but it did not have the rules of a council meeting."

Goldstein, who has served on the council since 1980, said the same system has been in place for more than 30 years.

The City Council will vote on Tumlin's proposal at Wednesday's meeting to present the request to Wiles.