Advocates look to revive Lost Mountain cityhood

Mar. 24—They're back.

Ten months after voters in west Cobb rejected a proposal to create a city of Lost Mountain, pro-cityhood group Preserve West Cobb is heading back to the drawing board, undeterred.

The group told the MDJ that Sen. Ed Setzler, R-Acworth, will file a bill Monday that would authorize a May 2024 referendum on creating the city.

In the Lost Mountain referendum last May, cityhood was defeated by a margin of 58% to 42%, with nearly 26,000 votes cast. Voters in other parts of the county also rejected cityhood proposals in east Cobb and Vinings, though a November cityhood referendum in Mableton passed.

Preserve West Cobb said it had listened to criticism of the last proposal, and had made changes to the new bill in response.

A copy of the bill was not available by press time.

One significant change the group shared, however, is the proposed city's size.

The last Lost Mountain proposal would have created a city of more than 74,000 residents. The new proposed city would be less than half that size, with roughly 35,700 residents.

But the argument for the city remains much the same — giving residents greater say over land use, preserving low-density neighborhoods and preventing commercial development.

Richard Hintze, an 18-year resident of west Cobb, has taken over the role of executive director of Preserve West Cobb from Scott Johnson. He said the city is about keeping the area's "rustic suburbia."

"Its density and its commercial development," Hintze said. "We keep seeing applications come in to bring in storage facilities ... And we're seeing other pieces of property being eyed for semi-commercial development.

"Between that and the density, there's now another proposal to put these micro-neighborhoods, where somebody gets ahold of an eight- or 10-acre lot, and they immediately want to try to fill it with as many roofs as they can. Things that just don't fit within the neighborhood as it is now."

West Cobb is represented by Republican Commissioner Keli Gambrill, who during the last cityhood fight, defended her record of preventing high-density development in the area.

"None of us have a complaint about Keli. The bigger concern is, there's only one Keli," Hintze said.

A new map

The last cityhood proposal included nearly all the land between Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park and the Paulding County line as its eastern and western boundaries. Stilesboro Road comprised much of its northern edge, and Macland Road was the proposed southern boundary.

The new, smaller proposal would still run up against Paulding, but its eastern border would be roughly Acworth Due West Road. The vast majority of the city would be north of Dallas Highway. Its northern reach would run up to Lake Acworth, and not cross Cobb Parkway.

"We had a hard time getting the word out," Hintze said of the first, failed cityhood campaign. "There was a lot of reliance on mailers and emails and things like that. We just didn't have the opportunity to get out in front of folks .. It was such a big area that we just did a poor job of delivering the message."

In the last referendum, cityhood fared best in the westernmost voting precincts along the Paulding border. Six of 22 precincts voted in favor of cityhood. Ford 01, the most pro-cityhood precinct, voted 56% in favor.

"It's more or less the precincts that voted for it," Hintze said. "We're going back and saying 'This is the same idea, but we've heard you and we understood, and we're fixing all the issues that were brought up in the last go-round.'"

With a new map, changes to the city charter and tweaked services, the group will have to commission a fresh feasibility study. Hintze said Preserve West Cobb needs about $30,000 to hire the University of Georgia's Carl Vinson Institute to conduct the study.

Swapping out services

Hintze said the new city would be governed by a mayor and six council members. While all seven officials would be elected citywide, there would be three council districts, with two members representing each.

The new proposal, Hintze said, calls for the proposed city to provide planning and zoning, code enforcement and parks and recreation.

Dropped from the last bill is sanitation services. Trash pickup provision has been a politically fraught debate in unincorporated Cobb over the past year.

Preserve West Cobb said the new city would only offer a "limited number of passive parks." Hintze said Lost Mountain Park and Oregon Park would remain under county control.

"They cost too much, and the county does a great job with them," he said.

Hintze said the new charter eliminated some controversial details, such as requiring property owners to maintain sidewalks, and abstentions on the City Council counting as yes votes.

The idea, he said, is for Setzler to introduce the bill Monday. A feasibility study would hopefully be commissioned in April and received by this summer, after which community meetings would ramp up.

Setzler could not be reached by press time, but a staffer who works for him placed a legal ad in Friday's MDJ giving notice that a Lost Mountain bill would be introduced this session.

If the bill passes the state legislature next year and is signed by the governor, a referendum could be held next May.