What’s going there? A 130-townhome development in Hixson, with more to come

A swath of trees on Middle Valley Road in Hixson has been cleared for the development of 130 townhouses.

The Coffey Tree subdivision, just north of Shelby Circle, is also set to hold around 50 single-family detached houses, developer Aaron Smith said.

Smith, who co-owns the land, said he expects construction to begin in the summer.

“The same plan going on, just like we said we would,” Smith said by phone.

Zoning for the project was approved in October 2023 after a meeting where some nearby residents said they worried it would make traffic and flooding worse in the area.

(READ MORE: Hixson residents voice concerns about roads, flooding in light of future growth)

Smith said the plans include retention ponds on the site that should help with flooding. A site plan shows three planned ponds for stormwater, one with a walking path around it.

The site drains toward an existing 4-foot culvert under Middle Valley Road, according to documentation for a stormwater variance there. Five wetlands, totaling 1.64 acres, and a 100-foot-long stream will be filled as part of the project, the document says.

Smith said he’d heard the concerns about flooding, but the project passed muster with the city and the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation.

“Honestly, every single subdivision, everybody’s getting flooded out,” Smith said. “That’s what everybody says, but that’s entirely not true.”

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Kay Billingsley, who lives in the Valleybrook neighborhood behind the site, said it was sad to see the landscape change.

“They’ve already pushed out all the deer and wildlife,” she said. “And where is that water going?”

The development will have two ways in and out, Smith said, one onto Middle Valley Road and one onto Shelby Circle.

Billingsley said she hopes to see a deceleration lane added for the turnoff from Middle Valley. The road won’t likely be expanded because it would require the county to buy land from many parcels next to the road, county planner Nathan Janeway told Hixson residents at a meeting in October.

“Making a lefthand turn onto Middle Valley is really gonna be a strain,” Billingsley said by phone.

People used to use the area as a dumping site for years before the development was proposed, Billingsley said. She once saw someone dump a refrigerator there, she said.

“Toilets … mattresses, just trash,” she said.

(READ MORE: ‘It’s a start’: Residents respond to plan for Chattanooga’s growth)

Smith said crews found concrete there, but nothing like toilets or mattresses. Workers testing infiltration capacity there found “piles of rubble with large concrete, asphalt, wood and other forms of construction debris” on the site, according to a permitting document.

There were lots of questions about the long-term plans for the site at a community meeting with the developers last year, Greg Taylor, president of the Valleybrook-Windrook Homeowners Association, said.

“I drove by and saw, boy, they’re moving a lot of land, so obviously something’s going on there,” Taylor said by phone. “And I don’t think, to my knowledge, there’s been any sort of public input or any questions since that public meeting.”

Billingsley said she hopes to see people own and live in the townhomes, rather than renting them out.

“We’re not for stopping growth in Middle Valley,” she said. “We know there’s a lot of room for growth, but we really don’t want to see that much more rental in there. We want to see homeownership, because then they’re more vested in the community, and they’re going to be paying property taxes. So we’re all for that.”

Contact Ellen Gerst at egerst@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6319.