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When Politicians Try to Slip One By Us… 

When Politicians Try to Slip One By Us Backyard tiny home

By Laura Armstrong Monica

Update: Kay Morgan, Candidate for Cobb Commission Chair Weighs in on Radical Zoning Plan

How many of us feel good — in this economy or ever — about taking an unnecessary risk with our largest investment, our homes? How about taking risks with our entire community?

That may be about to happen, whether we want it or not, due to an October Surprise our county commission chairman has proposed (on the Cobb County website)

It’s a bit hard to find if you’ve not heard of it and won’t be discussed until the week after the election, if the commissioners even get to it.  And it merits a heap of discussion. 

The surprise is a County Code thing, but I can’t help comparing it to that baby demigorgon monster from the hit series Stranger Things.  

When found by 13- year-old Dustin in the show, this little, wormlike entity charms everyone, but within a short time grows and evolves from eating a candy bar to a cat to an entire town. It’s a bad little dude.

Of course Lisa Cupid isn’t purposefully handing us an insidious demogorgon, and her proposal is perhaps well intended, if misguided.

The point is: The code change no one knows about yet is a devastating blanket zoning change that will take Cobb far away from what’s made it a great place to live.  

Cupid’s proposal creates a new Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) Code, a trend in other states alleged to alleviate the affordable housing crunch. While it seems benign on the surface, maybe even interesting, it comes with unintended consequences that will alter the safety and beauty of our suburbia and will cause absolute chaos in our outstanding public schools. Keep in mind, there is no proof it actually helps with affordable housing. 

It’s a complicated topic but important to all homeowners and I’m trying not to lose you in the boredom. You NEED to know this. Imagine if you will a code change that will allow ADUs — small homes of up to 850 square feet– to be built IN ADDITION TO the existing home on ANY residential lot in Cobb, no matter how big, no matter one’s zoning. Sometimes called granny flats, the unregulated dwellings would permit up to three unrelated adults and six children to occupy said space, with up to six vehicles authorized, five in the driveway (or most likely in the yard) and one on the street. Just what we need, and then traffic on the streets.

All utilities would be attached to the primary house. Homeowner’s associations and covenants, which are big in Cobb, would have NO authority over these ADUs unless existing covenants specifically state ADU’s are prohibited. ADU’s didn’t even exist when most of our homes were built, so consider them mostly not covered. 

This is a lot I realize. Bear with me. 

When I first heard this proposal, it didn’t alarm me. My hobby is houses. I love architecture, cottages and she-sheds of every shape and kind. I love man caves, I love the idea of families living together but not. My great aunt lived in an ADU (we called it a garage apartment) in Portland, and I loved it. You get what I’m saying. 

But Portland isn’t Cobb and this new code will open the floodgates, increasing density in a damaging way. Other towns have already done this, so it’s easy to find information. It’s controversial and it really doesn’t fit our suburbs.  

School Chaos

People, as many of us know, will do almost ANYTHING to get into certain high schools, whether for academics or the football program. What happens if a thousand homeowners in a district decide to build ADUs over the summer — untrackable to the schools – and hundreds more kids show up in that attendance zone for the following school year without notice? It will be chaos all around, hurting the kids and teachers and increasing the transient rate of the schools by putting renters in traditionally stable neighborhoods. Density is density, whether it’s in people’s backyards or on one half block next to Waffle House, and more rentals in every corner of the county will stretch learning resources everywhere. 

Maybe some areas in Cobb don’t think it can happen to them. They believe their schools are safe and home values will never go down. But most of us know it’s the schools that attract people, absent a charming little town center. If you ruin the schools by flooding in transient students, what happens to your value then? 

Destabilizing Established Neighborhoods

Allowing backyard rentals with no parameters destabilizes established neighborhoods. Two houses (with as many as 3-4 families) on a lot are not desirable to a single family neighborhood but are desirable to absentee landlords. Whether a unit is meant to be an Air BnB or a long-term lease, most neighbors aren’t comfortable with the strangers and activity those attract, along with more crime and more economic havoc. People want to know if sexual offenders, for example, are on their streets, and ADUs will be perfect hideaways for criminals of all stripes with no oversight and no public property rental records. For decades it’s been known that adding “soft density” like ADUs and rooming houses increase crime, bring down home prices, repel family purchasers and attract investors. 

Blanket Zoning, An Investor’s Dream 

We’ve all heard about investors buying up entire neighborhoods in the last four years. These huge, impersonal companies will be salivating at the thought of tearing down an affordable, charming older home and building two back onto the property. It’s already happening in cities like Dallas, where neighborhoods become unrecognizable. Sometimes the smaller homes are leased  for MORE than the original home would have been, not less, pricing people out of both owner’s and renter’s market at the same time.

The Environment

Meanwhile, you might have thought you purchased your home because of the privacy, nature and beauty of your backyard. I sure did. Maybe you, like us, have hawks, deer, coyotes and other wildlife visit, such a treat. But once that density bumps up, the skyline and the view from your windows will be completely altered. Cutting down trees and buffers with all the negative impact we’ve worked so hard to avoid will add to ecosystem destruction and flooding nightmares.

 Remind me to tell you the story of my landline phone number being published accidentally on the county website for almost a year and the multiple voicemail complaints I heard on stormwater runoff before I finally got it removed. I digress. Suffice to say, county staff already can’t keep up with flooding issues. 

I won’t even get into the homeowner’s association issues, what a nightmare. But expect neighborhood discord. Government seems to want that these days, right? 

That’s why this is so important. All politics is local, they say, and you can’t get any more local than your own backyard. This misguided decision to introduce a controversial blanket zoning code after an election rather than before could be considered underhanded and at the least defies normal practices. Cobb’s land use plan was honed over decades by professionals who cared about the character of our neighborhoods. Homeowners have consistently and in good faith followed regulations and conformed to many restrictive conditions. And now Ms. Cupid wants to negate all that and start over, using this radical move. She really doesn’t have a mandate. 

We have a long history of great commissioners. Ernest Barrett built. Bill Byrne and Helen Goreham protected. Sam Olens preserved. Lisa Cupid… we’re not sure what she’s done. But she’s about to get all up in our business if she’s re-elected in November, and it’s probably going to hurt people a lot. Please consider this when you vote, and tell her your investment should NOT be put at risk. 

Laura Monica is a 36-year resident of Cobb County and holds an ABJ from the Grady School of Journalism at UGA. She loves freedom, her country and her family.  

Contact her at LauraArmstrongMonica@gmail.com

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