Final vote on rezoning application now slated for Dec. 19

Posted Saturday, September 21, 2019 11:18 pm

The Cartersville City Council was set to hear the first reading of a rezoning request that would allow a developer to begin the groundwork on a proposed 300-unit apartment complex off Center Road at Thursday morning’s public meeting.





Then Cartersville Planning and Development Director Randy Mannino read a letter from applicant Etowah Venture Partners II, LLC, requesting that the application be tabled until at least Dec. 5.





“They will work out some other issues, and may even put together another plan,” he told the council.





Councilman Taff Wren made a motion to table the rezoning application, additionally conditioning the application to be ready for the council’s first meeting of December. The motion subsequently received unanimous approval from the other council members.





The proposal to create a roughly 50-acre complex on a 111-acre parcel essentially abandoned at the height of the Great Recession has proven controversial. The City of Cartersville Planning Commission voted 4-0 to recommend denial of the rezoning request earlier this month , while members of the Cartersville City Schools System — both former and current — have voiced a multitude of concerns about the development’s impact on student enrollment numbers.





The applicant, a subsidiary of Atlanta-based Atlantic Realty Partners, seeks to rezone the former Etowah Preserve subdivision property from R-20 residential to MF-14 multifamily.





Another Atlantic Realty Partners subsidiary is also looking to construct almost 200 townhomes near the proposed apartment complex. The City of Cartersville Board of Zoning Appeals approved a variance request for the proposed development at an August meeting , which would allow for “front access parking” at the site.





While the item was not officially considered by the city council, a public hearing on the proposed development went on as scheduled. About half a dozen members of the community took to the podium to discuss their thoughts on the proposed development, including Cartersville City Schools Superintendent Dr. Marc Feuerbach.





“We have a plan for 10 years down the road,” he said. “We’ve seen projects approved over the past one-to-two years that include a total of 571 apartments and/or townhomes … the overall number is now pushing 700 units that have already been built or been approved. Is there a guarantee that the rollout of all these units will be in such a way that steady growth will occur? Is there a guarantee that the developers plan to keep these properties for a long time?”





Cartersville City Attorney Keith Lovell asked Feuerbach if those same concerns held true for all of the planned multifamily developments in the city. At the same meeting, the council heard the first reading of a special-use permit request to allow more than 200 apartments to be constructed as part of a $100 million mixed-use development along the Highway 20 corridor





“My understanding was that with [applicant J.B. Henderson Properties], there’s a lot of ones and twos above businesses,” Feuerbach said. “When he started talking about three-bedrooms, I was like, ‘OK, this is a different kind of thing.’”





Feuerbach’s predecessor, former Cartersville City Schools System Superintendent Dr. Howard Hinesley, said he deeply objects to the proposed Center Road development.





At the moment, he said just 50.7% of Cartersville residents live in “home-occupied housing” — a figure that’s dropped by nearly 10% since 2005.





“What has that meant for the school system?” he said at the podium. “A 9.5% increase in students on free and reduced lunch and a 6% increase of students needing English as a second language … the common denominator in school systems across the country who have a student population with a high percentage of economically-disadvantaged students is the disproportionate ratio of home-occupied housing to rental property.”





Arthur Smith, a resident of the Autumn Canyon subdivision, also voiced opposition to the proposed development. He said he was particularly concerned about traffic safety in the area.





“I just don’t think the infrastructure is good enough for this number of units off Center Road,” he said. “All told, in the 2.9-mile stretch of Center Road … accidents without injury in 2018 was 36. So far in 2019, it’s 18.”





While members of Atlantic Realty Partners were in attendance at the council meeting, no one representing the firm spoke publicly at the hearing.





“The applicant will be working with planning and development with any modifications that may be made in that, and again, it will take two readings,” Cartersville Mayor Matt Santini said. “We’ll have a first reading with a decision on Dec. 5 — if everything goes the way it is scheduled to — and then a final vote, after a second public hearing, on Dec. 19.”





At Thursday morning’s meeting the council also approved a last-minute addition to the agenda pertaining to litigation against a host of web-based companies who have not been remitting hotel/motel and excise taxes to local governments. Among others, Lovell mentioned Travelocity, Expedia and Hotels.com.





“That has been settled in our favor and those funds are going to be paid into a court, and administered by a firm called Brinson, Askew, Berry out of Rome, who then distributes it to all the cities in Georgia," he said. "That distribution agreement is expiring, but the funds will still be coming in.”





A motion to reauthorize the agreement received unanimous approval from the council.





Other items of interest from Thursday’s council meeting include:





— The council voted unanimously to approve a request from the parks and recreation department to purchase $63,000 in netting and posts from Birmingham-based Containment Systems. The budgeted item will be paid via the City’s remaining general obligation (GO) bond money.





— The council voted unanimously to pay a $5,774.09 tax bill for the City’s gas system facilities located in Floyd County.





—The council voted unanimously to pay Comcast $6,398 after a City crew damaged five underground cables on July 24.





— The council voted unanimously to pay Stephenson Engineering, Inc. $9,800 to complete designs for silt and erosion control at the Williams/Transco delivery point at the Brown Farm Road regulating station.



