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].
