PDF: Normal Park
Everyone, it seems, wants a piece of Normal Park.
The latest contingent trying to claim rights to be zoned for the popular K-8 North Chattanooga magnet school are residents of One North Shore, the high-end condominium complex on Manufacturers Road across from Greenlife Grocery.
But the complex recently was rezoned for Brown Academy near UTC, and tempers have flared.
A group of One North Shore residents, the property manager and Fletcher Bright real estate agents recently wrote to the Hamilton County Commission, Schools Superintendent Jim Scales and the city and county mayors, demanding a meeting with officials to voice concerns.
Rebecca and Chris Murphy moved to One North Shore from New York City in part so their daughter, 9-month-old Giulietta, eventually could attend Normal Park. They didn’t find out about the rezoning until after the Hamilton County Board of Education already had approved the change.
“The whole thing seemed very underhanded,” Rebecca Murphy said. “I know we’re pretty angry.”
During a rezoning battle this spring, some North Chattanooga residents on Bell and Spears avenues were rezoned for Red Bank Elementary School because of what administrators said was overcrowding at the upper and lower school campuses of Normal Park.
After several community meetings, families with school-age children were grandfathered in and allowed to attend Normal Park. But as part of that compromise, One North Shore was rezoned for Brown Academy on East Eighth Street.
Except, One North Shore residents say, no one ever told them they were included in the rezoning discussion. Now their children won’t be able to attend Normal Park, and they’re afraid their $170,000 to $550,000 condos will be worth less money.
But school system officials said they contacted the only family who had children in the school system at the time of the zoning change. Those children were allowed to attend Normal Park, schools spokeswoman Danielle Clark said.
Karla Riddle, director of Hamilton County’s magnet school program, said she left a message with One North Shore personnel regarding the rezoning.
Property manager Liane Carullo said Riddle stopped by One North Shore and left a message with a housekeeper who no longer works for the company. The two women then played phone tag, only speaking after the rezoning vote had taken place, she said.
“We’re a new development, and there’s all kinds of growth on the North Shore,” Carullo said. “I’m sure it was an oversight.”
Not so, Clark says. The district notified One North Shore and the single family whose children were affected, and held community meetings that the residents could have attended. “Everybody at One North Shore was well aware,” she said.
Carullo, who wrote the letter to the school system and other officials Aug. 2, said she has yet to hear back from anyone at the school system. She said she will give them 30 days to organize a community meeting with One North Shore residents and the school board before contacting them again.
No meeting has been scheduled, Clark said.