Cobb County, GA Zoning Overlays & Bonuses: Downtown Design Guide (2026)

Section 134-286 of the Cobb County Code creates the Mableton Form-based Redevelopment District, adopted February 22, 2011 and last amended July 26, 2016, to answer what the code calls the sustained lack of private investment in the old Downtown Mableton. The district implements the South Cobb Town Center-Mableton Lifelong Community Plan and applies only inside the boundaries plotted on the code's Table 1C transect-zone map; nothing outside that map is covered unless the Board of Commissioners approves an expansion. To add a new area, a petitioner must show at least 15 years of below-county-average development, documented blight, whether social, economic or physical, or inclusion in a Board-approved master plan or corridor study, then run a process that mirrors the original Mableton effort: a week-long, multi-designer workshop with public notice by road signs, direct mail, e-mail, website and print media, at least two public workshops, an illustrative master plan approved by the Board, and code language that tracks that plan.

Inside the district, the code activates its provisions with precise verbs: shall or are means mandatory, should means recommended, and may means optional. A Review Committee processes and approves applications administratively; owners who disagree with a ruling, or who need a deviation, have two paths. A warrant lets the Warrant Committee approve a practice that departs from a specific standard but still fits the section's general intent, with 15 days' notice to the Review Committee before the Warrant Committee meets and a 30-day window to appeal its decision to the Board of Commissioners through the zoning division manager. A variance, for any other deviation, goes straight to the Board of Commissioners with a planning commission recommendation. Owners are never locked in: any parcel may instead build under its prior underlying zoning, in which case the form-based standards do not apply. The district's rules otherwise override conflicting county codes except the fire code and the county's adopted International Building, Fire, Mechanical, Plumbing, Residential, Fuel Gas, Energy Conservation and Property Management Codes and the National Electrical Code.