Smyrna Apartment Gets Green Light to Rebuild

A Smyrna apartment complex will be able to rebuild any unit that sustains more than 75 percent damage.

The Cobb County Board of Commissioners voted on Thursday night delete one condition placed on the Belmont Crossing apartment complex on Atlanta Road on Tuesday night which would have prohibited the complex from rebuilding an unit with such damage. That condition was inadvertently included by the planning commission, county officials said.

The "clean up" zoning request was required to go before the BOC in its zoning meeting to make sure that everything is in compliance now that it is bank-owned after going into foreclosure.

"They can't really sell it and have a clear title (without this)," District 4 Commissioner Bob Ott said.

The board also voted to purchase and demolish a home at 5046 Ceylon Drive in Austell that was "substantially damaged" by a flood in Sept. 2009. Although the property wasn't included in the 100-year floodplain at the time of the incident, it is in the 100-year floodplain proposed by a restudy of hte area and any reconstruction would require the main floor be raised a minimum of three feet above the floodplain elevation.

Purchasing the parcel would cost the county $26,150, the appraised value of the property, as well as $6,000 for the demolition and any associated legal costs.

The property is in the immediate vicinity of other properties that the county already owns or is in the process of purchasing.

In other business, the board approved the Airport Capital Improvement Plan annual update for the Cobb County Airport at McCollum Field, which includes two projects for which the county will seek grant funding in 2013 – a new air traffic control tower at 50 percent federal funding and 5 percent state funding, and improvements to Taxiways A and B at 90 percent federal funding and 5 percent state funding.

The board voted to submit a grant application for the Taxiway Improvement Projects in 2011, and this past August, the BOC approved a contract with the Georgia Department of Transportation for the reimbursement of engineering fees and design expenses for the improvements in an amount not to exceed $246,882.

The CIP’s annual update also included the submission of a grant application to the Federal Aviation Administration for the design and construction of the new air traffic control tower.