Chattanooga planners on Monday approved changes to a 316-unit apartment complex on East Brainerd Road that has drawn fire from area residents.
Jack Vincent, an opponent who lives nearby, said the apartments would create a bottleneck on Panorama Drive.
Some residents have said they believe the apartments will pave the way for further commercial development of that stretch of East Brainerd Road, which is a mixture of commercial and residential.
The new plan approved on Monday was created to reduce the impact of the construction process on the neighbors, said Mike Price, of MAP Engineers, who represented the developers.
The previous plan called for 100,000 yards of dirt to be removed from the site, creating 10,000 truck loads, he said. Now, all the soil will remain on site, reducing construction traffic, Mr. Price said.
The Chattanooga-Hamilton County Regional Planning Commission approved a new site plan for the Amberleigh Ridge complex, replacing a site plan that had been approved in October.
I still don't understand why the Times Free Press stories on this subject dance around the fact that this rezoning passed because opposing neighbors were told the rezoning had been withdrawn -- by a planning commissioner. This cheap, high-density, 25-acre threat to our property values happened because Planning Commissioner/City Councilman Jack Benson told us the rezoning to this $2.4 million piece of property on East Brainerd Road was taken off the table, even as he invited other neighbors to attend the rezoning meeting. All along, he only met with certain neighbors, some of whom have sold their property to another planning commissioner. Benson was a high-visibility broker for this land deal on behalf of the developer, not his constituents, whose property value will decline as this 3-story monstrosity starts to shadow our ridge. Now, we have 316 units of apartments moving in our backyards in an established community, in no small part because Planning Commissioner/County Commissioner Bill Hullander failed to recuse himself from voting for this project despite owning Hullco on the block next door. He and his son also have interest in several other properties fronting East Brainerd Road right next door to the rezoning. I asked the Planning Commission to adopt an ethics code to keep Hullander and other commissioners from making such votes. I also asked the commission to investigate Benson's misrepresenting this project to opponents, while using fear tactics to get other neighbors to approve of it. He misinformed my neighbors that our current R-1 zoning, which protected us from cheap apartments on the 25 acres, would permit high-density construction. That flim flam is how he got them to fall for the R-3 zoning that really will allow such high density. Now we've lost the R-1 protection, and more rezonings will surely follow. This rezoning should be reversed. Benson's telling neighbors it was withdrawn nullifies the public notification system, which was flawed because of the lack of visible rezoning signage for the first rezoning approval in October, and the cryptic ad in the legal organ. Is it too much to ask for a newspaper to investigate news, and a planning commission full of people in land development to not use our land-use plan for personal gain? I hope to see more of my neighbors protesting this unethical and destructive rezoning at next month's council meeting. Lana Sutton of East Brainerd Neighbors
Jack Benson is part of the good ole boy network around here and I would not trust him as far as I could throw him. Sorry about your troubles. I know too well how he and others like him operate.
This is nothing new.....why do you think these guys are in a job that pays peanuuts?????
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