Justin Whaley walks away from the planning notice sign proposing a special permit outdoor shooting range on Bakewell Mountain in north Hamilton County. The 184-acres are located on Retro Hughes Road.If you go
What: December’s Chattanooga Hamilton County Regional Planning Commission meetingWhen: Dec. 12, 1 p.m.Where: Hamilton County Courthouse, 625 Georgia Ave.
A controversial firing range proposal is still alive after a months-long hiatus from the public spotlight.
The potential outdoor shooting range venture called Dead Zero Shooting is back on the Chattanooga Hamilton County Regional Planning Agency docket for Dec. 12, as indicated by a sign on Retro Hughes Road last week and confirmed by agency documents.
Justin Whaley and Wade Batson are seeking a special permit to open the range on 184 acres of Bakewell Mountain in northwest Hamilton County owned by Atlanta- based Walden Ridge LLC.
However, first the RPA must approve the special permit, and many area landowners are speaking out against the proposal.
Whaley said Thursday a series of sound tests indicates any noise coming from the property will likely be less than the sound of birds chirping after additional sound abatement measures are installed.
But neighboring landowners, including Barron Hodges, believe noise will be just one of several things that create "undue hardship" for those who have built or are planning to build homes along Retro Hughes Road.
"Our biggest concern is safety," said Hodges, who has owned 49 acres across the street from the proposed range since 2012 and plans to have a home built by the end of next year.
With Dead Zero planning to construct firing lines up to 600 yards long, Hodges said he fears stray bullets could pose a danger to his young children.
Hodges said he is a member of the National Rifle Association and would typically support the construction of a firing range if its neighbors didn't object.
Had Dead Zero Shooting proposed to buy the land on Retro Hughes Road five to 10 years ago, before many nearby parcels had been snapped up as future home sites, Hodges said he would view the range in a different light.
But Hodges and Derek Clayton said the tight-knit group of landowners feel slighted by the proposal because their financial and environmental commitment to the land could be affected by the range's presence.
"This is people's life investments at stake, and it preceded all of this," said Clayton, who owns 25 acres on Retro Hughes Road, according to property records. "[Dead Zero] has marched in with zero consideration."
Batson said he and Whaley would like to meeting with landowners before December's planning agency meeting but nothing has been set up yet.
"We've been working our butts off to try and get all those questions answered and make sure there won't be any problems whatsoever with the range," Whaley said.
Whaley said there will be "no chance" of lead from spent bullets contaminating area water because Dead Zero has a comprehensive remediation plan.
The proposal was scheduled to go before the planning agency on March 14, but the case was moved to the April docket after the planning agency spotted two missing items in the permit application.
Batson and Whaley were told they needed a signed approval from the current landowner and approval from the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Health Department for proposed sanitary facilities.
Whaley said both matters have been resolved and he and Batson have been "dotting the i's and crossing the t's" for a range they say will fill a void in Chattanooga's bustling outdoor community.
Whaley, who said he is service-disabled after serving with the Marines in Iraq, said his motivation for the firing range came when he could not find a place to practice long-range service rifle competition shooting. He and Batson envision a state-of-the-art, family-friendly range catering to the public and modeled after the CMP Talladega Marksmanship Park in Talladega, Ala.
In the proposal's early stages, it also received push-back from outdoor enthusiasts because of its proximity to the Possum Creek Gorge section on the Cumberland Trail. The range would be roughly a half-mile from the trail.
"A lot of us, we chose this land in the Chattanooga and Hamilton County area because of the long-term vision for outdoors, hiking and recreation," Clayton said.
"We all targeted land along this corridor with that activity in mind, and we've invested in it. The money that we've invested, that's out of the bank now. It's an idea that's in full motion, and we feel like this proposal we're looking at has given us a lot of heartache."
Contact staff writer David Cobb at dcobb@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6249.