Nearly a hundred people gathered in East Chattanooga on Saturday – despite rain and fog – to launch a grassroots coalition set on pressuring Chattanooga City Council members to refuse support for the sale of the city-owned former Tubman public housing site unless the buyer signs a community benefits agreement.
The meeting – hosted by Hope for the Inner City, Unity Group of Chattanooga, Chattanooga Area Labor Council, Chattanooga Organized for Action, Glass House Collective, Urban League of Greater Chattanooga and Accountability for Taxpayer Money – was held at Hope for the Inner City. It was spurred by shared frustration over the recent industrial zoning of the former Harriet Tubman site, which was purchased from the Chattanooga Housing Authority by the city of Chattanooga in 2014. The group is now seeking to start a community-led development process with the city’s support.
“We are all at the table hearing the same information so we can work together and work together constructively,” said Quentin Lawrence, deputy executive director at Hope for the Inner City.
City administrators and Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce staff have said that light manufacturing is the best use of the site because East Chattanooga needs jobs. They also said businesses hadn’t been interested in the site because its zoning had not been changed from residential to industrial.
However, residents were surprised when the city began pushing to quickly rezone the site not long after launching a city-backed, community-wide planning process to determine the future of East Chattanooga, including the Tubman site. Many feared the move would undermine efforts to engage East Chattanooga residents – who, for the most part, have not benefited from the last few decades of economic growth in and around downtown – in the planning process.