Earlier this year, County Commission Chairman Larry Henry drew criticism for helping some friends contest purchase offers from state officials who are trying to buy land and rights-of-way to widen East Brainerd Road, which has been a seriously clogged artery for more than a decade.
More recently, the nearby East Hamilton Middle/High School, which was built for 1,650 students and has been overcrowded since it opened two years ago, began the new school year with an outsized complement of 2,100 students. So much for the flickering hope of relieving serious overcrowding at Ooltewah’s other schools.
Henry’s conflict of interest aside, both of these circumstances suggest just a glimmer of the growth problems — for right-sized schools and roads, for adequate sewers, fire halls, parks, police stations, ballfields and mass transit — that lie on the near horizon.
Indeed, growth is expected to soar in Hamilton County — and in Bradley and adjacent counties as well — in the wake of the burgeoning industrial development spurred by the arrival of Volkswagen, Alstom, Wacker Chemical, Amazon and related supplier and ancillary development. It has certainly begun to take root in the eastern side of Hamilton County closest to those plants.
Future growth is widely expected to far surpass any previous growth rate this county and the nearby region has ever experienced. Based on similar growth dynamics in other southern cities that have landed an automobile plant, Hamilton County alone may gain tens of thousands of new residents and hundreds of new businesses in the not-too-distant future.