North Shore resident Robert Drake unintentionally may have spoken for thousands of Chattanoogans last week about a variety of issues when he addressed the City Council on the proposed downtown zoning plan.
“There seems to be a decision-making shift from the communities in which we have residents and neighbors and businesses,” he said, “to a centralized committee structure that may not be sensitive to the needs of the city.”
Drake was specifically referring to the zoning plan, which many residents don’t believe provides enough parking and others believe doesn’t allow them to adequately develop their property.
He might just as easily have been referring to the bike lanes foisted upon Broad Street (and planned elsewhere) with little public debate. Or he could have been referring to the Brainerd Road Overlay Zone Draft Ordinance, which requires business owners making new builds or significant renovations to adopt new and expensive landscape designs for their projects to be approved. Or he could have been referring to various other regulations that have come down the pike.
To be sure, the changes already made and those foreseen in the new zoning plans have pluses and minuses. But so much of it feels handed down from above – from an elite group that knows best to the unwashed masses who have made their work and their home in Chattanooga for years.