On Anderson Terrace, neighbors in approaching vehicles slow down - not to chit-chat out car windows, but because the road is too small to support both cars at once, they say.
If Alabama developer Arbour Valley Development's proposal for a 264-unit apartment building on Bonny Oaks Drive is approved next month, those residents will have many more neighbors.
"We can barely fit two cars on that one-lane road," said resident Bren Luke. "Just through neighborly interaction we know that one has to stop while the other one goes around. But by proposing 264 units with access on Anderson Terrace, that's just thrown out the window."
The Chattanooga-Hamilton County Regional Planning Commission voted last week to defer action on the proposal for 30 days so the developer can meet with neighbors and nail down critical project details, like the entrance and exits into the 30-acre site.
The initial plan for the complex calls for driveways into the apartments from Anderson Terrace and Bonnyvale Lane. But Mike St. Charles, an attorney with Chambliss, Bahner & Stophel who represented Arbour Valley at the planning commission meeting, said the developer would prefer one entrance from Bonnyvale, which connects directly to Bonny Oaks.
"Our preference would be one main entrance, more direct from Bonnyvale and Bonny Oaks that is wider, safer and more of a boulevard," he said.
That could help mitigate neighbors' concerns that traffic from the apartments will spill into the neighborhoods through Anderson Terrace.
If the project is approved at the next planning commission meeting in February and later earns the final OK from the Chattanooga City Council, construction should start within a year and would take between 12 and 18 months to complete, said Taylor Price, a project manager with Arbour Valley.
The Arbours at Bonny Oaks includes 11 planned apartment buildings, a clubhouse, pool and playground.