A Bradley County judge has ruled against a Chattanooga landowner who proposed a grocery store in Walden, saying that an ordinance passed to permit the supermarket project is illegal.
“The court finds that the ordinance as enacted not conform to the plain terms, guidelines, or the intent of the Village Center Zone applicable to the town of Walden,” said Bradley Circuit Court Judge J. Michael Sharp.
Sharp said in the ruling that the town board’s 2019 approval of the ordinance was “illegal, arbitrary and capricious.”
But Chattanooga attorney John Anderson and his LOP LLC group, who own a 15-acre tract at Taft Highway and Timesville Road and had sought the grocery store, said Monday he plans to appeal the ruling this week.
Also, Anderson said the group is pursuing development of the property as it is commercially zoned, noting it could hold a gas station and convenience store.