To make its 400 residents feel safer, the tiny town of Ridgeside is cutting itself off – almost literally – from Chattanooga.
In August, Ridgeside, located on the slopes of Missionary Ridge, began walls of brick and stone that block three roads cutting through the municipality. It plans to top these structures with wrought iron fencing.
The three walls, which cost the city $120,000, are security for residents, Ridgeside Mayor Brant Mason said. The closures cut access roads into the city from six to three, and Mason said he’d also like to close Shepherd Avenue, a one-way road leading out of Ridgeside.
If that happens, the two primary routes into the city will be Shallowford Road and Tunnel Boulevard.
The problem, said Mason, is that it was too easy for people to use Ridgeside as a shortcut.
“What we were having troubles with are people coming into the community either in cars or on foot, and there were a number of ways to get out of the community,” Mason said.
But the walls divide more than streets; opinions differ on their impact on the community.
Jacquelyn Rogers, a Chattanooga resident living on North Seminole Drive – one of the blocked roads – said the closures slow down emergency response time, but some of her neighbors say the wall there has made the road safer.
One former elected official even suggested that Ridgeside residents take the city to court over the obstructions.
Mason said the walls aren’t meant to make outsiders feel unwelcome. One wall is going up on Ridgeside Road on the part that has been closed for decades, he said. North Seminole Drive was closed for 18 months before Ridgeside started stacking bricks from one side of the street to the other.
Lynncrest Drive at Tunnel Boulevard remained open at the request of residents until the city began construction on the permanent barrier, Mason said.
Mason said the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Regional Planning Agency – which makes zoning and land-use recommendations to local governments – told him the agency did not need to approve closing the roads. He said if he’s done something the wrong way, he wants to make it right.
Confusion
In September 2009, former Regional Planning Agency Executive Director Barry Bennett wrote a letter to then-Hamilton County Commissioner John Allen Brooks, stating Ridgeside had no approval to close roads.
Hamilton County Attorney Rheubin Taylor wrote Mason, telling him if Ridgeside didn’t take down the barricade at North Seminole, the county sheriff would do it.
But the county reversed its opinion.
“The [Regional Planning Agency] checked their records and advised me Ridgeside had gone through the correct process,” Taylor said.
The Regional Planning Agency has no records documenting Ridgeside’s road-closing project, according to planner Hugh Failing.
Mason said he received an e-mail from the agency, giving him the go-ahead, but was unable to produce it Friday. He said he probably received the e-mail in 2009.
“I’ve communicated with [Regional Planning Agency],” Mason said. “I’ve made people aware of what we’re doing. We’ve had public meetings about this. We’ve created ordinances. I have done everything I have been advised to do.”
A peaceful inconvenience
Rogers, who lives next to the wall on North Seminole, kept tabs on the communication between Ridgeside and other officials.
The retired librarian collects e-mails and letters from public officials going back to January 2009 in a folder, and takes pictures of what she says are safety hazards created by the barrier on her street.
The barrier slows emergency response time, she said. And while she’s quiet by nature, the outrage in her letters to officials is palpable.
“Will someone die before anyone acts?” reads one letter in bold print. “Can anyone reading this message do anything?”
Brooks, a local attorney who recently lost re-election, agreed with Rogers and, in a letter, recommended that she sue Ridgeside.
Rogers said she’s not considering a lawsuit at this point.
“I’d like to see if responsible government can help solve this,” she said.
Not everyone agrees that Ridgeside should tear down the walls, including her husband, David, who thinks the city has a right to build them.
He said lost motorists following GPS devices stop abruptly in front of their home, particularly when Chattanooga crews work on the Brainerd Road tunnel and they head to North Seminole because it used to be a shortcut to Shallowford Road.
Drivers turn around in the Rogers’ driveway.
“We’re trading access for the tranquility of being the last house on a dead-end street,” David Rogers said. “But the tranquility hasn’t materialized.”
Public safety officials serving Chattanooga and Ridgeside said the walls pose no major problems to their response times.
Chattanooga Fire Chief Randy Parker recalled one incident in which a fire engine, responding to a Chattanooga fire, had to take another route around the wall at North Seminole. The fire was not significant and the delay was not costly, he said.
However, the fire department favors keeping all roads open, he said.
Ridgeside contracts with East Ridge for police and fire protection. East Ridge Public Safety spokesman Erik Hopkins said the closures create few problems, but could occasionally hinder police response. He said most responders get to Ridgeside through Tunnel Boulevard.
On the other side of the North Seminole wall, Ridge-side resident Jim Lea said he and his neighbors are pleased. Lea said the wall has stopped cars zooming by his home. Lea, who works in real estate, also said the walls increase property values.
Rogers’ neighbors across the street, Denerica Moon and her mother, Florence Pipkins, also are split on the subject of the wall. Moon said the wall “sucks.”
“It was a sight to see the day that huge fire engine had to back all the way down the street,” Moon said.
Her mother said the road is an inconvenience, but it cuts down on traffic through the street.
“It has just made it a peaceful area,” Pipkins said. “Sometimes you accept an inconvenience for peace.”
Contact Dan Whisenhunt at dwhisenhunt@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6481. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/DWhisenhunt.