Further UPDATE: At it’s Tuesday Oct 8 meeting the county Board of Commissioners voted non-objection to Smyrna’s annexation. Read about that development here.
UPDATE: According to an email from Joey Staubes, a planner for the City of Smyrna, the October 14 hearing before Smyrna’s Planning and Zoning Board has been tabled, and the case will be heard at the Planning & Zoning Board meeting of November 11, 2019.
A group of neighbors along Buckner Road have started an online petition to oppose Smyrna‘s annexation and rezoning of a property at the intersection of Buckner and Pebblebrook roads.
The property is currently a wooded lot, and is directly across the street from the Whitefield Academy.
The text of the petition includes the following description of the rezoning request:
Applications for Annexation and Rezoning have been submitted to the City of Smyrna for the development of the 12.7 acre parcel at the corner of Pebblebook Road and Buckner Road in Mableton, GA. The proposed purpose of the Rezoning application is to change the current land use of LDR – Low Density Residential (unincorporated Cobb County) to MODR – Medium Density Residential (City of Smyrna). The purpose of the Annexation application is to annex this parcel into the City of Smyrna from unincorporated Cobb County.
If the annexation and rezoning are approved it would allow Beazer Homes to build 43 homes on the 12.7 acre lot.
Approval would change the property from the current Cobb County R-20 category, or low-density residential, to Smyrna’s medium density category.
The controversy over the rezoning finds descendants of the Buckner family, for whom the road is named, on opposite sides.
The seller of the property, Joyce Howell, inherited the land from her mother Mary Buckner Moore.
Christopher Jones, one of the organizers of opposition to the development, is a sixth generation descendant of the Buckners who acquired the land in the early 19th century.
Jones told the Courier in an email, “Myself and the area stake holders wish for a development to be within the current zoning.”
Cobb County BOC Chairman Mike Boyce has sent Smyrna Mayor Max Bacon a formal letter of non-objection to the annexation, and the BOC has the item on the agenda for their Tuesday October 8 meeting.
The request will be taken up by the Smyrna Planning and Zoning Board on November 11 [changed from an earlier date].
Please keep the Buckner/Pebnlebrook area as it is! It was my home for many, many years!
At every whim of a developer or other money hungry individual, our inherited naturist wealth is slowly going the way of all truly worthwhile things; it’s being gobbled up for the sake of some kind of expediency. It’s regrettable but has been going on for hundreds of years.
Only now we’re nearing the end…
I have lived on Pebblebrook for many years, and our roads can barely handle the traffic as it is. This kind of development is irresponsible!!!
I have lived off Pebblebrook Road for nearly twenty years. Our roads can barely handle the traffic as it is. This kind of development is irresponsible!!!
I am against this re-zoning.This will be a traffic nightmare to an already busy area for kids trying to get to school on time. Whitefield Academy and Lindley 6th grade Academy are on that same corner.
Good Luck. Our neighborhood was forced into annexation by Smyrna counsel about 15 years ago. We all had septic fields and were very happy. Well there a lot sold and he was on a rock bed so he could build septic field. They forced all of us into the city and tore up all of our backyards to put in septic/sewer system we didn’t want. All this was for one homeowner.
We were told you should be happy, can use the Smyrna library for free.?
I am a resident of this area, and I signed the petition. My children attend school in the overcrowded Nickajack district. And now the City of Smyrna wants to dump more students on us who would have otherwise been districted in Mableton? Really?? Developers and Greed win again.