Roswell's city council's denial of a plan to build 19 houses on an existing cul-de-sac has been challenged with a lawsuit by the resident who planned to sell his property to a developer.
Keith Osborn filed suit Friday in Fulton County Superior Court after his plan to sell about 20 acres to a developer was rejected. Council denied the proposal, which had been recommended for approval by the city planning commission. Council 's rejection came after Michael Hartley, who lives next to the proposed development, appealed the planning commission's recommendation.
Across metro Atlanta, developers are trying to fit more houses into smaller spaces, bringing additional traffic and more stress for existing residents.
There are conditions that create the need: land is getting more expensive, said John Hunt, principal of real estate research firms ViaSearch and MarketNsight.
Additionally, as traffic gets worse and more people want to be closer to their jobs in the northern Perimeter and Atlanta, builders are looking for buildable land anywhere they can find it, he said.
“People have to have somewhere to live,” Hunt said.
If Osborn’s suit is successful, the Roswell case could open up existing cul-de-sacs to new development across the region, said Kurt Hilbert, an attorney who represented Hartley, who filed the appeal.
Because the proposal adhered to the city’s development code and had been approved by the city’s planning commission, the suit says, it should go forward. The suit alleges that city council “considered matters outside the record” when it granted Hartley’s appeal.
Hartley has lived in his home for 38 years. He said previously that he worried his property value would be harmed if the cul-de-sac was extended into a street. He also said he was wary of additional traffic.
Roswell’s planning commission had already approved preliminary plans for the Greyden Engineering development near the intersection of Wileo and Coleman roads. They called for a development with one entrance, off the cul-de-sac.
Now, there is one home there, built on three lots.
In the filing, attorney Kathy Zickert called the city council’s decision “arbitrary, capricious, a manifest abuse of discretion and without any lawful, rational basis.”
Julie Brechbill, a spokesperson for Roswell, said the city does not comment on pending litigation.
Zickert had previously said that there was “no legal basis” for the council’s denial, saying that the city council tends to be reactive to homeowners, even when their concerns are irrelevant to valid reasons to deny development.
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