Pitts Road townhome developer meets requests from neighbors, fire department

The developer who has proposed building up to 16 townhomes on two Pitts Road lots said he agreed with neighboring residents on matching the exterior color of brickwork to their homes.

Ray Rouzati appeared before the Sandy Springs Planning Commission at its July 20 meeting on a request to make a zoning map amendment to allow residential townhouses at 1015 and 1025 Pitts Road.

The planning commissioners voted to recommend approval of the amendment from RD-18 (residential-detached, 18,000-square-foot minimum) to RT-3, which allows townhomes of up to three stories.

Rouzati said he and his partner, Mohsen Zeinedini, also agreed to the Sandy Springs Fire Department’s request to plan the street so fire trucks had easy access to the homes.

He thanked the city’s planning staff for telling them about the cottage court concept that now is in their plans, which they didn’t know existed before meetings on their application.

“And now we understand the benefits of that given that it has a park atmosphere basically in between all the townhomes and gives each townhome basically a separate backyard,” Rouzati said.

Cynthia Pfanstiel of Telfair Gates in the Dunwoody community next door to the Pitts road property spoke out against the original plan the developer had for the townhome’s exterior color before Rouzati addressed the issue.

“I think if you look at the surrounding existing buildings, you’ll notice there are in a natural state of brick and stone using the neutral colors and their exteriors as well as architectural features, such as dormers and uneven roof lines, making all of the buildings very attractive in the area,” she said.

Pfanstiel, who spoke to the commissioners via Zoom, also said neighbors had heard the new townhomes would have white exteriors like some properties several blocks away that are along Ga. 400.

Rouzati said they agreed with her opinion on the aesthetics, which she offered during the second community meeting on the zoning request.

“Thank you, Miss Cynthia, for recommending that,” he said. “We realized it would stand out a little bit too much as compared with the project she referred to which backs up to 400 off Colquitt as you all know, which is all white.”

The development originally was planned with a hammerhead design for its street, which would form a “T” that would require fire trucks to do three-point turns to turn back around. But after a fire department representative spoke with them, Rouzati said they changed plans to put in a 25-foot-wide street from one of the existing curb cuts to the other.

“It’s going to be one continuous loop so that there is no requirement anymore for a fire truck to do a three-point turn, which would obviously make their response time go up,” he said.