The real estate developer seeking a tax break for a 120-unit affordable housing apartment complex on Highway 58 asked the Hamilton County Commission to withdraw his application Wednesday morning, raising questions about the project’s future.
Commissioner Tim BoydMike Mallen, attorney for Alex Trent, the developer of the $17 million project, said the delay was merely “procedural” to iron out a few more details. But the Flats at 58 project drew some criticism from Commissioner Tim Boyd last week, who questioned whether it was needed.
Mallen said he expected the application to be back on the commission’s agenda “fairly promptly,” and said the decision to withdraw it was not based on any concern that it might not pass. “I’m not counting votes,” he said. “I don’t think the intention right now is to sway votes so much as to work on the final details, so we have a clear and accurate picture of what the project entails.”
Trent is seeking a payment in lieu of taxes, or PILOT, tax abatement agreement for 15 years.
The project already has been approved by the Chattanooga City Council and the Health, Educational and Housing Facility Board, which must approve all PILOT proposals.
In the past, PILOT requests have run into trouble when the percentage of affordable housing units is small in relation to the total number of units.
But the Highway 58 project, to be built on a vacant lot in the 5900 block of Highway 58, is 100 percent “workforce affordable housing,” Mallen said. In his presentation to the City Council, Trent said tenants will be limited to families earning less than $40,000 a year. The location is convenient to several nearby manufacturing plants, including Volkswagen, Mallen said.
“I think the directive from the local political leadership is ‘if you want to discuss PILOTs, don’t come to us with market rate developments,'” he said. “Come to us with work force affordable housing, where there is a reason for local government to be of assistance. That’s what developers have started doing, and now the elected bodies have to reconcile what they asked for with what the developers are now bringing them.”
Mallen noted the abatement would not affect the school board taxes paid on the property, which would increase from the current $11,000 to some $50,000.
In other action Wednesday, the commission denied a request to rezone a lot on Ooltewah-Georgetown Road from agricultural to commercial to allow the owner to build a convenience store.
Tim Howard and Bobbie Joe Frazier asked the commission to change the zoning on their property at 7302 and 7306 Ooltewah-Georgetown Road. But several neighbors objected to the request Wednesday, and the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Planning Commission also recommended that the request be rejected, so the commission voted unanimously to deny the rezoning.
Contact staff writer Steve Johnson at 423-757-6673, sjohnson@timesfreepress.com, on Twitter @stevejohnsonTFP, and on Facebook, www.facebook.com/noogahealth.