Catoosa County says 'no' to car business on Ooltewah-Ringgold Road

Staff File PhotoCatoosa County Manager Mike Helton speaks before the start of a 2012 meeting in the Catoosa County Commission room.
Staff File PhotoCatoosa County Manager Mike Helton speaks before the start of a 2012 meeting in the Catoosa County Commission room.

An auto shop won't be opening on a rural strip of Ooltewah-Ringgold Road.

The Catoosa County Commission voted Tuesday to deny Phil Davis' request to rezone his 1.8 acres of land from residential to commercial. Davis planned to tinker with old cars there, at 1449 Ooltewah-Ringgold Road, and hoped to get a dealer's license, too.

The vote followed a suggestion by the planning commission, which argued during a Feb. 28 meeting that changing the zone of Davis' property would break with the county's overall plan. The property is located in Pleasant Valley, about 1 1/2 miles south of the state line.

Some neighbors objected to the change, arguing that no business should open in the community.

"If you let this happen," said Alston West, who lives about one-tenth of a mile north, "it's going to be a crack in the dam."

Greg Stewart, president of the homeowners' association in the nearby Windstone subdivision, said he and his neighbors feared Davis' car business would alter their country living.

Added Glenda Fleming: "Whenever you have cars, you have gas. You have oil. You have anti-freeze. You have break fluid leaking out, down into the ground, where all our wildlife is. There's no telling."

Davis declined to comment after the vote, but his cousin, Tommy Davis, said the critics are being unfair to potential business owners. He pointed out that the subdivision is next to the state line, around the corner from East Brainerd Road, home to rows of pharmacies, grocery stores and fast-food chains.

He said his family has lived in the area since the 1890s and were happy when the subdivision came along.

"They got in," Tommy Davis said. "Now they don't want anyone else to get in."

He added: "Anybody who tries to make a living, they want to deny him that privilege. They fight everything that comes up there."

He said his cousin didn't actually want to run a car dealership on the small property. But he wants to be a registered car dealer so he can sell vehicles. He would just use the address for registration purposes.

Even if the commission approved the rezoning, though, Phil Davis might have run into some problems with that plan. In Georgia and Tennessee, car dealers have to be registered to specific places of business.

Of the five commissioners, only Bobby Winters voted in support of the car dealership. He said after the meeting that he has known Phil Davis for more than 60 years, since they were in elementary school.

Winters, 72, believes businesses will dot Ooltewah-Ringgold Road one day, regardless of Tuesday's vote. He envisions a version of Battlefield Parkway, where a Chick-fil-A sits next to a McDonald's, a Wal-Mart and a movie theater. Winters doesn't think the county should have the right to tell residents what to do with their property, so long as it's not hurting anybody.

"I believe in letting the people own their own land," he said. "They're not doing anything to harm nobody. It's not a bomb or poison, nothing illegal by law. He's not making whiskey."

"I don't want to be a dictator," he said.

ROAD CHANGES

The commission also voted to abandon small portions at the ends of Taylors Ridge Road and Misty Meadows Lane on Tuesday evening. Property owners in both areas argued about whether the county had the right to operate those stretches of land.

Some people want the roads private, allowing them to keep gates in front, closed off to outsiders.

Contact staff writer Tyler Jett at 423-757-6476 or tjett@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @LetsJett.

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