Industrial businesses say Cobb River Line plan will hurt them

By Mary Lou Pickel

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Clint Stamps stands in a little wooden hut by the bank of the Chattahoochee River, next to huge piles of sand.

High above his head, a pipe spews river water into a trough. The sand falls out, and the water continues back to the river.

Stamps’ father started the business in 1952 to supply sand to the asphalt makers who built Atlanta.

Now Stamps worries his business is in danger because Cobb County plans to change the industrial nature of its riverfront, encouraging more residential and recreational uses.

Where does that leave a man with a dredge and a sand pile?

Stamps and other industrial business owners along the Chattahoochee River say Cobb’s proposed River Line Master Plan could eventually put them out of business.

This part of Mableton has been home for decades to rumbling trucks, cranes, wooden pallets and auto salvage. Many of the businesses have been handed down from one generation to the next. But more townhomes and houses have sprung up in the last decade, pressing down from Smyrna toward the river and the industry that thrives there.

Metro Atlanta’s growing population, and the increasing attractiveness of locations close to town, have set up a conflict in Cobb that’s a reverse of the classic “not in my backyard” attitude. Here, heavy industries worry what a plan encouraging more residents in their backyard means for their future.

“This is my livelihood,” Stamps said, shaking his head after a customer took a truckload of sand for a golf course.

“This plan is just the beginning of phasing this all out,” Stamps said.

Cobb County plans to hold a public meeting at 6 p.m. Wednesday at the South Cobb Community Center in Mableton to discuss the plan.

The county has held a handful of public meetings starting last fall to talk about the concept of a residential, pedestrian-friendly river area. The meetings were attended by hundreds of residents who want to beautify the riverfront and create more parks and recreation in Mableton.

Joel Cope, chairman of the Mableton Improvement Coalition, says residents want to enjoy the Chattahoochee, but don’t have access to it because it’s fronted by heavy industry.

“We want this area to be a distinct one, like when someone says, ‘Hey, I live in Grant Park,’ or ‘I live in Inman Park,’ or ‘I live in Reynoldstown’ — you know what they mean,” Cope said.

Industrial landowners expressed outrage this summer, saying they had been left off a stakeholder’s committee as the county’s River Line Master Plan was formulated.

“The master plan forgot about industry altogether,” said Earl Seagraves, owner of Mid-South Supply Co., which recycles copper, brass and aluminum and sells industrial supplies. His father started the business in 1955.

Seagraves owns 30 acres along Riverview Road in south Cobb, some directly facing the river. He leases land to four other industrial businesses.

In the past few years, some non-industrial uses have moved into the area. Paces Academy, a private prep school, has built a sports field complex on Riverview Road. Also, a developer built Riverview at Vinings, a community of townhomes.

The county’s proposed River Line plan states that the industrial nature of south Cobb’s riverfront will gradually fade over the next decade, to be replaced by walking trails, townhomes, houses and a cute community retail center like Vinings Jubilee.

Developer Green Street Properties, which built the Glenwood Park community near Grant Park, has bought 86 acres in the last three years, smack in the middle of the industrial area near the Chattahoochee. The company may seek a rezoning to build a walkable development of homes, retail and office space, company Vice President Amy Swick said.

Walter Brown, senior vice president of Green Street, heartily supports the River Line plan, saying riverfront property so close to downtown Atlanta is valuable.

The River Line plan says the county could give economic incentives to developers or build partnerships with businesses to build new amenities in the area.

Brown says his company would be happy to sell Cobb County some of the low-lying land it bought next to the river, as part of the county’s $40 million parks bond initiative.

Industrial property owners worry that if a residential development opens next door, parents with strollers will start to complain about the heavy truck traffic, even though the land is zoned for heavy industrial use.

Such complaints already surfaced this month from homeowners at Riverview at Vinings. They opposed a new trash transfer facility and recycling operation, saying it would add odors, noise and more truck traffic to Riverview Road.

The Cobb County Board of Commissioners denied permits for the facility. Commission Chairman Sam Olens said such a project would not be consistent with an area that is “transitioning to residential, commercial and recreational uses.”

County commissioners will decide in late fall whether to speed that transition by approving the River Line Master Plan.

Karen Barton, owner of Phoenix Crane, worries that a move to limit truck traffic along Riverview Road would kill the business her father founded nearly 30 years ago.

She leases cranes used to lift heavy loads, like steel, and to help assemble tower cranes used to build Atlanta skyscrapers.

Trucks carrying the heavy cranes need to use Riverview Road to get to I-285, Barton said.

Todd Rice, of MHC Kenworth, a truck dealership on Riverview Road, said he invested $1.7 million in his business in 2006.

“We have no plans of moving our operation,” Rice said emphatically to Cobb’s Planning Commission Chairman Murray Homan at a public meeting last month.

Rice said he contributes more than $500,000 in sales tax per year to Cobb from truck and parts sales. This is at a time when Cobb has seen a decline in sales tax collections countywide, and now must cut back on planned sidewalks and other improvements.

Industrial business owners say heavy industry provides jobs and helps the economy. They have formed a new association and have hired land use attorney John Moore, a familiar face to Cobb politicians, to represent them.

The riverfront area was supposed to remain industrial in nature until 2030, according to Cobb’s future land use map.

While Cobb will respect the zoning that is now granted for heavy industry there, if the new River Line plan is approved, the county would frown on future zoning applications for industrial uses.

For Seagraves, the River Line plan could very well change a way of life and business that’s been in his family for more than 50 years. He remembers the Riverview Road area in 1955.

“It was undeveloped, and Highway 78 was one of the main highways coming to and from Atlanta,” Seagraves said. “It was before any expressways.

“We were like the only place here back then. Atlanta just kind of came to us — first industrial and now residential,” he said.