A plan to quarry a Lookout Valley tract to ready it for manufacturing drew fire from neighbors Monday, but a rezoning was approved by a planning panel and sent on to the Chattanooga City Council.
Black Creek residents along with officials from Covenant Transport and Reflection Riding expressed worries about blasting noise, traffic and air pollution that could result from the proposed work at the 3400 Cummings Road parcel.
"It poses a potential risk to property and property values," Julia Whitacre, vice president of the community association board at the Black Creek subdivision, told the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Regional Planning Commission.
Donna Shepherd of A.D. Engineering, representing rezoning applicant Bill Ramsey, said the quarrying at the 53-acre tract is temporary so it can hold manufacturing.
She told the planning panel she has a client looking for manufacturing sites and is having a problem finding one. She said plans are to blast and crush stone on-site.
"There are a lot of (Tennessee Department of Transportation) projects coming up. It's in close proximity to the interstate," Shepherd said.
She had sought rezoning from light industrial to manufacturing zone.
The planning staff recommended a manufacturing outdoor industrial zone to the planning commission. A staff report said that recommended zone allows such uses such as quarries and stone mills while "a M-1 zone does not explicitly allow this use."
Heather DeGaetano, managing director of the Reflection Riding Arboretum & Nature Center, opposed rezoning and said her facility is across a creek from the proposed quarry.
She said the quarry would disrupt "the enjoyment of our 300 acres."
An official for trucking company Covenant Transport, which has its home offices nearby, also asked the panel to deny the rezoning.
Kaitlin Sims of LaBella Associates, who said the firm was hired by Black Creek, said the quarry could operate seven days a week starting at 7 a.m. and the impact could "affect neighbors for years to come."
"Blasting on Sunday morning at 7 a.m. is not somewhere I'd want to live," she said.
Shepherd said there aren't plans to do blasting at that time on Sundays.
But Sims estimated there could be 1 million trucks needed to take out as much rock as is planned.
Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly, who also serves on the planning panel, asked staff about environmental impacts.
Dan Reuter, the city's planning administrator, said there would be state requirements that would have to be met.
Ethan Collier, who chairs the planning commission, said there would be "a degree of regulatory oversight."
Shepherd said she is willing to talk to opponents of the rezoning but wanted the matter moved to the City Council, which is expected to take up the issue next month for final approval.
"We want to work with them for conditions before it goes to the City Council," she said.
City Councilwoman Jenny Hill, who also serves on the planning commission, said City Councilman Chip Henderson, in whose district the property sits, had indicated he's comfortable with the proposed rezoning moving onto that panel "so conversations can happen."
Contact Mike Pare at mpare@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6318. Follow him on Twitter @MikePareTFP.