Marietta council passes 6-month apartments freeze

Apr. 13—MARIETTA — The City Council voted to freeze new apartment applications for six months Wednesday night, amid a raft of developers approaching the city with plans for multifamily buildings.

The item directs city staff to conduct a study examining the city's zoning code as it relates to apartments, and authorizes them to hire a consultant if needed.

The moratorium does not apply to proposals already submitted to the city, since developers are entitled to city law as it stands when they submit their application.

Mayor Steve "Thunder" Tumlin and the council have for years been more favorable to low-density, owner-occupied development, and have repeatedly rejected proposals to build apartments. In addition to concerns about density changing the character of neighborhoods, they have associated apartments with transiency, crime, and a lack of upkeep which leads to blight.

"We're Marietta, not New York," Tumlin said at a meeting in late March, when the city's zoning code was being discussed.

Apartment skeptics have often pointed to Marietta's campaign to revitalize the Franklin Gateway area as a cautionary tale. In 2013, the city began using its voter-approved $68 million redevelopment bond to purchase and demolish aging apartment complexes and blighted retail space in the Franklin Gateway corridor to encourage new investment.

Councilman Joseph Goldstein, who represents Ward 7, was the only member to vote against the freeze.

"I generally don't think moratoriums are usually the best idea. So that's just my opinion on that. I don't think the moratoriums are the best way to handle the situation," Goldstein said.

The council has, however, signaled willingness to allow some apartments. But the mayor is less willing.

The moratorium was approved shortly after Tumlin vetoed the council's approval of a 322-unit apartment complex at the corner of Powers Ferry and Delk roads, occupied by a Kroger slated for demolition.

Other developments

The Kroger development, dead for now, is one of several apartment proposals to crop up in recent months.

Most controversial among them is Bridger Properties' plans to build a 135-unit, seven-story building off Marietta Square. The land is already zoned for a category which allows the building, and Bridger does not plan to seek variances from the city. Tumlin and some council members have said they don't want it to be built, but it's unclear if they can stop it.

Before construction begins, Bridger must receive approval from the Marietta Historic Board of Review, then the City Council. But those bodies will only be voting on the building's appearance, not its use as apartments or condos.

Tumlin has said he did not previously realize the central business district zoning category, which the Bridger land is classified under, allows apartments. Council members last month, incredulous upon learning that apartments could be built off Marietta Square, took the first steps toward freezing new apartment applications.

The mayor last month proposed a new overlay district which would prevent apartments from being built near the railroad tracks downtown, citing safety concerns about derailments. The proposal failed to advance out of committee.

But after Wednesday's meeting, Tumlin hinted he would continue to pursue the idea, saying that the railroad overlay district had not been advanced "yet." His proposal would be retroactive to February, in theory preventing Bridger's plans from going forward.

"I don't have some secret plan," to prevent the Bridger building, Tumlin said. Preventing the building will require "getting something to a vote."

A third apartment proposal, from Atlanta-based Westplan Investors, would add 28 townhomes and 300 apartments on just over 19 acres of land where Powers Ferry and Roswell roads meet, the former Harry's Farmers Market site. Though the developer is not requesting rezoning for the property — it is already zoned for a mixed-use development — the city requires applicants to gain approval of site plans for mixed-use proposals.

Resident Larry Wills encouraged the council to review its entire zoning code.

"The zoning process in Marietta is pretty loosey-goosey ... I think it needs to be really tightened up," Wills said.

Added Wills, "now what y'all are doing are eating into areas that shouldn't be developed."

'Silver spoon'

Despite being supported by the mayor and most of the council, the freeze was not without its critics.

Donald Barth, who speaks at most council meetings, told the council that "multifamily is not a sin," and that plenty of normal, good people are renters.

"This thing about a stigma. Man, where did that come from?" Barth said. "That comes from rich people that just want to say 'My family had me a house waiting for me.' Most of us don't. We work our way up. It is so bad to think that I can pick the ones up here with a silver spoon. I can pick the ones up here that didn't have to work their way up the ladder."

Another resident, Eric Bishop, said apartments are good tools to encourage redevelopment, and are needed to house young professionals and empty nesters. The rejection of the Kroger development will create another "hole in the city," he said.

"Lots of different people live in apartments," Bishop said. "We need to, I think, move beyond this notion that all apartments are bad."

Another resident, Muhammad Sakhi, echoed Barth's criticism, saying people in their 20s often don't have a way to live where they want without renting. He called the language the council uses to discuss renters "astonishing."

"Because it makes it sound as if, if you're unable to afford a home, you've suddenly done something wrong, or you're a blight to the community, and that's just not the case," Sakhi said.

Sakhi said his parents moved to metro Atlanta in the 1990s and lived in an apartment on Buford Highway, because it's what they could afford at the time.

"And I find it embarrassing that the city will reject hardworking folks like my parents, like the community I grew up in, for the impression that these people are doing something wrong, because they have to use rentals," he said.

Councilwoman Cheryl Richardson, before the vote, said that her support for the freeze wasn't about the kind of people who live in apartments.

"It really is, where do apartments make sense?" she said. "Are we grouping all apartments together, which was the fallacy of Franklin Gateway — it just became apartment row. Or are we putting apartments in areas where there's some single-family homes, there's maybe some townhomes, and we are making neighborhoods. So I think that the moratorium gives us an opportunity to step back and look at our zoning categories."