If county commissioners give final approval on Aug. 21, Brooks Chadwick Capital, LLC, an east Cobb real estate investment company, will build nine homes on 3.82 acres at 2129 Groover Road, near Blackjack Mountain.
The developers want to build homes with a minimum of 3,000 square feet, said John Moore, senior partner in the Marietta firm of Moore, Ingram, Johnson & Steele. The homes will be priced from $400,000 to $700,000.
The zoning change would allow developers to build an average of up to 2.1 homes per acre. The property now allows fewer than two homes per acre.
This is the second development in three months that Brooks Chadwick has brought before the planning commission. The firm’s plans for an 11-lot subdivision that will replace a tennis center near Atlanta Country Club, with homes priced between $800,000 and $1.5 million, were approved by the Board of Commissioners in June.
Brooks Chadwick focuses on areas near Walton, Pope and Lassiter high schools.
“That’s where the homes are selling,” Moore said.
Moore said the Groover Road subdivision will have an underground detention pond, with enough storage to hold runoff from a 100-year flood.
“Once it’s constructed, it will be a grass area,” Moore said. “You won’t even know it’s there.”
Jill Flamm, president of the East Cobb Civic Association, said the underground detention pond is common on commercial structures, but rare for residential.
“It works well there,” she said. “It will protect the homeowners next to the property, and that was the major concern.”
Flamm said the developers worked well with her group. No one spoke in opposition to the development at Tuesday’s meeting.
In south Cobb, a plan to close off access to St. Benedict’s Episcopal Church and school from Atlanta Road within six months did meet some opposition, but the planning board still unanimously recommended the move. The church is just north of Cumberland Boulevard and has 850 active members and 256 students in preschool through fifth grade.
Ben Clopper, a member of the church’s vestry, said the church was asking the board to amend a previous zoning stipulation that required the church to build a deceleration lane on Atlanta Road. The church failed to meet a June 2011 deadline to build the lane.
“The access point there is not necessary, and, in fact, just complicates the layout of the day school carpool,” he said. “We decided that the church really didn’t want or need that access point.”
But Mary Rose Barnes, a nearby resident who was one of two people opposed to the move, said the school is too busy to rely on Cooper Lake Road for access.
“This year they have 25 more students than last year,” she said. “It’s a whole different ballgame.”
While planning commissioners agreed to the changes, they did include some stipulations. St. Benedict’s will be required to turn in a master plan for growth, which was originally due to the county in 2010, within three months. It will also move the farmers market it hosts on Tuesdays during warmer months from a 4 to 4:30 p.m. start time to help avoid conflicts with carpool, which takes place from 3:30 to 3:45 p.m.
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Board will never go for it because they are still getting taxes on the distressed properties from someone. They continue to increase the tax base by approving further development. Insane!!!!