The Cobb County Board of Commissioners voted to offer no objection to Smyrna’s annexation of a 12.7 acre property at the intersection of Buckner and Pebblebrook roads. The item was part of the consent agenda at Tuesday morning’s meeting, and the consent agenda was passed on a 5-0 vote.
The annexation, and an application submitted to the City of Smyrna for rezoning to create a 43-home development have been the subject of opposition from neighbors along Buckner Road who created an online petition opposing the annexation and rezoning.
Jessica Guinn, the director of the Cobb County Community Development Agency was asked by the commissioners to explain the circumstances under which the county can legally challenge an annexation by a city within that county.
“Whenever a city submits an annexation request, at that point we have certain criteria by which we have to review it, and there are only certain reasons that we can object to an annexation request,” Guinn said.
She said that ultimately, in order for the county to object, there has to be a financial burden to the county that results from annexation, an unincorporated island has to be created, or the density requested by the city has to be out of line with the county’s future land use plan.
“So again,” she said, “there are only certain things that we can object to, and all of this is based on state legislation, and also our House Bill 489 agreements with the cities. So we are very limited in the reasons that we can object to an annexation.”
District 4 Commissioner Lisa Cupid, who represents the area of the proposed annexation and rezoning, said, “To underscore that there was some consideration given toward this particular request … I was concerned that it fell outside of the 489 framework, that Smyrna was asking for (more) additional density than was allowed in the future land use map.”
“But in our House Bill 489 agreement there is a table that identifies which zoning categories can be permitted by the city when they have a request for annexation, and their density request did fall within that table that articulates Cobb County’s ongoing agreement with Smyrna,” Cupid said.
The City of Smyrna has a hearing on the rezoning scheduled for November 11, 2019 at their Planning & Zoning Board meeting.
Greedy developers get to do what they want, while taxpayers have to for the bill for the new sewer system and suffer the consequences of too much development on a two lane road.
I attended that meeting and explained everything to the BOC that Smyrna is doing pertaining to annexation. This was all put in place by Doug Stoner in 2011, when as a State Senator, he changed the boundaries of the South Cobb Development Authority by renaming it the South Cobb Redevelopment Authority. Senate Bill 266 changed the boundary to connect with the Smyrna boundaries which is now allowing Smyrna to increase their jurisdictional boundary by pillaging land from unincorporated South Cobb. Doug Stoner chairs the South Cobb Redevelopment Authority and does nothing to stop the pillaging of our land by Smyrna. He has provided no revitalization or redevelopment for South Cobb other than to allow Smyrna to SNATCH land! We the community has to stop them! It’s funny this paper didn’t mention my testimony before the BOC on the 9th of October.
The above commenter spoke very well when he said this was a “pillaging” of south Cobb land by Smyrna!
In fact, the ‘revitalization’ that we have received from Doug Stoner amounts to little more than overtaxed roadways and schools that are not being expanded fast enough to absorb the glut of new housing. I hope the neighborhoods of Pebblebrook and Buckner stand shoulder to shoulder on this one—once Smyrna has its foot in the door, it will be a domino effect of overdevelopment for what little green space still remains.
This is simple greed. Mableton is the new gold rush for Smyrna prospectors both builders and the city of Smyrna alike. I have written articles about this. People turn their noses to Mableton all the while stealing our rich resources – our land, our trees, our peace. Try to find swaths of land in Smyrna to build… Go ahead, I’ll wait. Smyrna is the most successful disaster of gentrification and has gotten drunk off its success. It acts like locust gobbling up rich landscapes and now wants to take over the most expensive communities in Mableton for their own coffers. Reading the report it looks like the cost to take over Mableton actually makes them lose money, roughly $600,000 a year. Overnight they would need to have staff, systems in place, etc and who is supposed to pay for that? Once the builder pays impact fees ( that they charge to the buyers) we are left footing the bill as our sewer and storm drains take on more impervious surfaces take a hit.
Builders come in, buy land and want to change the name of a Smyrna to try to get a “perceived” price hike in what they can sell properties for. They pay under market for “Mableton” and then flip it to “Smyrna” and charge exorbitant prices for boxes of sticks over dirt and tell you its luxury while they fool the buying public and laugh all the way to the bank. I think they should try to work on incorporating the the unincorporated parts of Smyrna within their borders and fix up their eye sores they currently have. Perhaps if they did that, they wouldn’t have that giant unsightly billboard on South Cobb and EW Connector. Or better yet go and try to incorporate Vinings and see how that goes first. The County needs to grow a pair. I have never seen a county that can’t control it’s own borders as Cobb. What residents are askings for this, Vinings Estates? Those poor folks have been duped into thinking that being in Smyrna protects their home values. What protects home values is taking care of your home and neighborhood regardless of what city it may be located.
I say all of this a real estate agent since 1999 and who has lived in Mableton since 2003. I make money when people want to buy or sell, it’s what I do to pay my bills. But this is not business as usual. This is theft. We don’t want Mableton to be chock full of townhomes like Smyrna has, we love our land and respect it. And it is not worth the cost of of losing greenspace and changing zoning over a couple measly dollars while disrupting the peace we have in Mableton. If I wanted to be in Smyrna, I would have bought there.