A pair of Chattanooga area developers want to build 175 homes off Roberts Mill Road on Signal Mountain. (Staff graphic by Cameron Morgan)One of the biggest new subdivisions on Signal Mountain in years is planned by a pair of Chattanooga area developers who want to put 175 homes off Roberts Mill Road.
Plans are to start work next year on the 339-acre tract to raise the single-family homes. If fully built out over the next decade as developers envision, the subdivision will bring an estimated $68 million of new residential development, said Mike Price of MAP Engineers.
Homes are expected to start at $400,000 each, while lots are slated to range from 2 to 10 acres in size, Price said.
He said the development group, led by Jim Morrison and Randy Brooks, has met with Hamilton County and worked out a plan to improve Roberts Mill Road between the upper and middle road gates at Flippers Bend.
Price said there are poor curves on that part of the road which will be straightened, as well as some grades flattened.
"We recognize that Roberts Mill Road below us is a sometimes difficult stretch to navigate in inclement weather," he added.
Making the road improvements near the development would help address the issue, Price said.
"They'd make the improvements to Roberts Mill Road first," he said about the development group.
Builders had initially proposed to create a planned unit development and planned to seek Chattanooga-Hamilton County Regional Planning Commission approval on Dec. 11.
But Bryan Shults of the Regional Planning Agency said the applicant decided to withdraw the request. He said the developers could seek to move forward with the submittal of subdivision plats for review by the Planning Commission.
Price said the developers learned they didn't need a planned unit development, or PUD, for the project and plan to go through the "normal subdivision process."
He said there already has been a couple of community meetings with people living in the Boston Branch and Mill Creek neighborhoods nearby.
One concern expressed is that about 20 percent of the parcel is zoned for Soddy-Daisy schools and there were worries about busing children down the mountain, Price said. He said that once development is underway and homes are selling, public school officials could zone the entire site for Signal schools.
"We see this as being a nice upper-middle-class development," Price said.
He said some of the proposed project backs up against the existing Mill Creek subdivision. Plans are to put in buffers between the projects, he said.
The proposed project is the biggest new residential development proposed on the mountain in the past five years. In 2012, developer Jack Kruesi proposed doubling the size of his Fox Run development on Signal Mountain with a new subdivision. He said the Wild Ridge at Fox Run would hold 199 homes and eventually could bring more than $75 million of new residential development to the mountain over a decade.
Contact Mike Pare at mpare@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6318.