Make no mistake - they are not doing anyone any favors. Had they gone before the Planning Commission on Oct 1, they would have likely gotten a recommendation to deny (the Planning Commission cannot deny a zoning application, but can only make a recommendation for the Board of Commissioners zoning hearing, which occurs two weeks later). If only a few people had opposed this, do you really think Isakson Living would be redesigning their plans to accommodate?
What happened is that the Cobb Planning Commissioners and Board of Commissioners got hundreds, if not thousands, of emails and other communications from members of the East Cobb community. The East Cobb Civic Association (representing about 9,000 homes in East Cobb) recommended that the zoning application be denied, and several HOAs have also come out against this development, including Indian Hills (1,600 homes), Independence Square (184 homes), Mitsy Forest (125 homes), Hidden Hollow and Glenside (both adjacent to to the proposed development), and Chelsea Park.
(If your subdivision or civic organization in East Cobb would like to hear our side of this story, please contact us, using the Contact link at the top of this page).
Over 1,500 people have signed petitions (including over 1,300 online). (Remember that any resident of Cobb County over 18 can sign this petition, not just one signature per household, so ask your significant other or adult children to also sign).
And, over 500 people have "liked" our Facebook page.
So, we are in somewhat of a holding pattern while we wait for new plans from Isakson Living, which we believe will also be incompatible with the community of East Cobb. If fact, when Isakson Living presented to the Mitsy Forest subdivision on Sep 3, I asked Andy Isakson if they could come down to a density of 5 units per acre (the maximum allowed for senior housing on Low Density Residential land, per Cobb County guidelines), and he said the economics did not work out. The economics do not work out because of the extreme price they are paying for the land (contingent on getting the zoning they want), plus the huge cost of grading the land into flat terraces stepping down an enormous hill to the flood plain near the creek (the land rises 130 ft from the creek to the peak of the hill in a span of 1,600 ft). In any case, this proposed community does not need to fit Isakson Living's financial balance sheet; it needs to fit the community of East Cobb.
There is also a significant possibility, if not a probability, that Isakson Living will ask for another continuance, possibly pushing back to the December 2013 or Feb 2014 zoning hearing (there are no zoning hearings in January). We have yet to see anything of their new plans, and they have asked to reschedule some presentations to only 3 or 4 weeks from the Nov 5 zoning hearing. They are basically scrambling, because they had no Plan B.
By asking for continuances, they are trying to do the following:
- Salvage any hope of getting this proposed rezoning approved.
- Split our resolve through some token concessions.
- Wear down the community, by hoping that some people give up, particularly as the zoning hearings move into the holidays.
We ask that everyone stay resolved, vigilant and flexible! Our East Cobb community depends upon it, as well as our individual property values!
We don't want to get too confident, either, because we believe that Isakson Living has some powerful supporters in East Cobb, who are willing to go against the will of the community. The most powerful of these is WellStar, who is building a $80 million health park across the street from the proposed Isakson Living $200 million retirement community - why would they not want 1,200 seniors across the street?
Stay tuned, and we'll let you know about the revised plans as soon as we get them. In the meantime, we will be posting some other interesting blog posts about this topic. To paraphrase John Paul Jones, one of our nation's founding fathers, "We have not yet begun to fight!'
One last note, is that we heard from the beginning that this was a "done deal"; that Isakson Living would get what they wanted. They may still succeed in getting some form of retirement community approved, but it will not be the 987 units they originally wanted. So we have already succeeded in something. When a great portion of the East Cobb community comes together, nothing is a done deal!