(bright upbeat music) - You're watching highlights of the Chattanooga City Council Meeting, a production of WTCI PBS.

(gavel bangs) - Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

Welcome to our Tuesday, February the 22nd city council agenda meeting.

I now call this meeting to order.

Our pledge of allegiance and invocation this evening will be given by Councilwoman Dotley.

- [Group] I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

- [Councilman Henderson] Thank you ma'am.

All right, we have no special presentations this afternoon.

Could I have a motion on the minutes?

- [Council member] Second.

- We have a motion to approve the minutes with a proper second.

Any questions or comments before we vote?

All in favor, aye?

- [Council members] Aye.

- Any opposed, no?

Approval of minutes does carry.

Moving now to ordinances on final reading.

With no objection, Madam Clerk, would you please read 5 A and B together?

- Item A, an ordinance amending Chattanooga City Code part two, chapter two by adding article nine, Chattanooga Department of Early Learning.

Item B, an ordinance closing and abandoning an unopened public right-of-way located in the 5300 block of Bradford Avenue for a property owner located at 1723 West 53rd Street as detailed in the attached map, subject to certain conditions.

- Councilwoman Hill?

- [Councilwoman Hill] Move to approve.

- [Council member] Second.

- We have a motion on the floor to approve items 5 A and B with a proper second.

Are there any questions or comments before we vote?

All in favor, aye?

- [Council members] Aye.

- Any opposed, no?

Motion does carry.

Moving now to ordinances on first reading under planning, Madam Clerk, 6 A, please.

- An ordinance to amend Chattanooga City Code part two, chapter 38 zoning ordinance, so as to lift conditions of number 11 B and number 11 C from ordinance number 13110 or previous case number 2016-0060 from the properties located in the 2300 and 2400 blocks of Elam Lane and the 2300 through 2500 blocks of Gunbarrel Road, 2321 Lifestyle Way and 7344 Mccutcheon Road.

- Case number 2021-0213.

Is the applicant present?

Is there any opposition to this case present?

Councilman Ledford, I am not seeing an applicant nor any opposition at this time.

- [Councilman Ledford] No sir.

And I do appreciate the council's patience on this particular item as we are still working through language.

We have had some movement on the scale for this.

So I would like to ask the council to indulge me and make a motion to defer this until March 8th and give us space to allow the vetting through the city attorney's office and also agreement with the applicant.

- [Council member] Second.

- [Councilman Henderson] All right.

We have a motion on the floor to defer until March the 8th with a proper second.

Are there any questions or comments before we vote?

All in favor, aye?

- [Council members] Aye.

- [Councilman Henderson] Any opposed, no?

So moved.

Moving now, Madam Clerk, to 6 B.

- An ordinance to amend Chattanooga City Code part two, chapter 38 zoning ordinance so as to rezone three unaddressed properties in the 1200 block of North Holtzclaw Avenue from R4, special zone to C2, convenience commercial zone subject to certain conditions.

- Case 2022-007.

Is the applicant present?

Thank you.

Is there any opposition to this request present?

Councilman Ledford, I am seeing an applicant and some opposition present this afternoon.

- [Eva Hammock] Thank you.

Well, I live on Hendricks Street and they are building they say apartments back behind my house on Holtzclaw and they'll be right in the driveway and I just didn't want it to connect close to my home.

It's a small street.

And that's what I'm concerned about.

I was never notified that they were going to build apartments on Holtzclaw and I had to find out from somebody else, you know.

So I'm concerned.

And they're saying about rezoning.

I was hoping to put that off until I talked to my neighbors about it.

So is there anything else you wanna know?

- [Councilman Henderson] I think we're good.

Let me just ask the council.

Do we have any questions?

And ma'am, could you give us your name for the record please?

- My name is Eva Hammock.

- [Councilman Henderson] Okay.

- And I live on 1221 Hendricks Street.

- [Councilman Henderson] Okay, thank you.

Let Karen come up, and then we'll... - [Resident] Can I say this?

Technically the neighbors right behind the Holtzclaw and Hendricks Street section of the neighborhood houses.

They're not opposed to it.

It's just lack of knowledge and they wanna be involved in the planning and all that and the zoning, but they are all duplexes at the end where Wilson and Hendricks and Holtzclaw are.

So I think that might be a second development part of all the others.

And Councilman Ledford has been really kind to get back with Mrs. Hammock.

So she's not here to just stop everything but he knows what we need.

They need to be informed of what's going in the back of their houses in that area.

- [Councilman Henderson] Thank you.

- So we won't prolong the issue.

Thank you all.

- [Karen] This was a case that was originally rezoning from the R4 special zone to C2.

The applicant came, I have a presentation if we wanna pull it up.

But the applicant came two weeks ago at our normal date and requested a UGC zone.

He said that the planning commission, he had heard that there was a desire to have more residential and a mix of office type uses on this corridor.

It's transitioning away- The plan envisions transitioning it away from an industrial corridor.

So the applicant has requested the UGC zone.

They feel like that they requested that zone, and the apartments and the daycare that will be built on the site is a better reflection of the plan recommendations.

So it was deferred two weeks.

And during that time the applicant has developed a site plan which I can show you.

They're also self-imposing a condition for three stories only.

And staff is recommending limiting uses on that site.

So during the process and hearing kind of what the vision for coming out of the planning process was, the applicant revised their request from storage and retail uses to apartments, a three-story apartment complex, and incorporating the daycare that's on the site into the new development.

And Hendricks street is just behind- You see the R4 piece highlighted?

Hendricks Street is just to the east of that.

And I believe her residence abuts the property.

The Hendricks Street shown is just to the right.

And I believe her property abuts the R4 zone property, the site for rezoning, to the Northern part of the site.

And then the site plan the applicants provided.

That was one of the things that, council, in the two week deferral for the applicant to work on his site plan, is shown here, and showing apartments.

It does show two connections to...not Wilcox.

- [Council member] Holtzclaw?

- Holtzclaw, thank you.

And I believe I heard her mentioning maybe connection to the rear, but the site plan does not show that.

The site plan does show some buffering.

So I know this has been a little bit unusual in the process with the applicant requesting a change but the self-imposed condition is shown.

There is number one.

Staff is recommending a use condition to be in line with the plan recommendations.

And that is shown as number two there.

- [Councilwoman Berz] Mr.

Chair, if I may?

- [Councilman Henderson] Go ahead, you're still active.

- Yeah.

All I was saying is that I believe this is incorrect to what we've spoken about.

- So when council said moving forward with the UGC, we did have some discussion about what would go on the agenda.

And I believe the change is to be made here.

If I was to make the change and show that it was rezoning to UGC I apologize that that was not done and shown on the agenda.

- [Councilwoman Berz] That's all I was saying, because nowhere did this intimate apartments or UGC uses... C2 wide open is a little scary.

- [Karen] That's correct.

- And so I wasn't sure what she was referring to.

That's all I was saying.

- [Karen] I'm sorry, then.

I took so long.

- That's okay.

- Councilman Ledford?

- So Karen, I believe, should our caption not read instead of C2 to UGC with certain conditions?

- That would be the caption if that was taking the self-imposed, the condition the applicant proposed, and then the staff recommend it be from R4 to UGC with conditions.

- Okay.

We'll need to make that change, I think.

- And I will confirm that tomorrow.

Thank you.

- [Councilman Henderson] So let me... Just a process question.

Should that not show up as an alternate version?

- [Councilman Ledford] Yes.

Because that was not the planning recommendation, was it.

- Yeah.

So when it shows back up, there should be an alternate version that reflects R4 to UGC.

- [Karen] In the two conditions shown on this screen?

- [Councilman Henderson] That's correct.

Yes.

Councilwoman Coonrod?

- Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Eva Hammock, for coming up and expressing what concerns that you do have.

I'm not sure how the ball got dropped and you didn't get a notification in the mail about the rezoning.

And I'm very familiar with this neighborhood.

It's a lot of seniors that live in this neighborhood.

It's an older neighborhood.

And they worked hard to own those homes in that area.

I'm very supportive of affordable housing.

So I do thank the applicant for wanting to create affordable housing.

Hopefully it is affordable in that area.

Because people often look at apartments as if it's a bad thing, and it's really not.

I mean, we should always in every community have a variety of housing types.

But I do think Ms. Eva has made a reasonable request of council to give her the opportunity to engage with the developer to ask any questions that she needs.

I mean, she's already stated she's not in opposition of it but she does want to be in the know and she wants to make sure that her home, the back of it is protected.

So I think that's a reasonable ask.

I don't think we need anything else.

But with that, I'd like to move to defer.

I defer to Letford as to how long he wants to defer it.

- [Councilman Henderson] Councilwoman Hill?

- [Councilwoman Hill] Thank you, Chair.

Karen, this requested move to the UGC zoning.

How many stories are actually allowed in a UGC zoning?

- I believe it's four stories.

- Four stories.

- And then you can get a deviation from planning commission.

And I believe in this location, the plan recommends kind of a max of five stories.

So the applicant is saying three stories and just made a comment he didn't wanna overwhelm the nearby residents.

- I was in a meeting earlier this week.

I have a lot of conversations about affordable housing.

And I agree with Councilwoman Coonrod about the importance of having a variety of housing.

And something that came up was density and how density is gonna be a critical part of providing or building enough housing to be affordable.

And so interesting to me that...

I would just like us to thoughtfully consider some of these height limitations, you know, to say we're gonna limit it to three stories when in fact the zoning would actually allow for five.

I wonder from this body if that is a direction that we wanna reconsider just generally, because we need more housing units and we are gonna get there by having more housing units on individual plots of land.

So as I think out loud about that, Karen, what do you think?

- So the UGC zone right now we know is being used for a lot of housing units.

That's why we're seeing a lot of condition to residential or conditions similar to this.

You can get a deviation from the regional planning commission for additional height in the UGC.

And we probably have not done a good job about letting you know how often the regional planning commission does provide height deviations.

So the whole idea was that in the UGC four stories, you can do a height deviation.

I think there was a recent one last month the planning commission where they approved seven stories.

And I'm looking at Chris Anderson to see if he remembered.

So that, that is something they do that looks at it on a case by case basis.

And that was for residential development in South Broad.

But that looks at kind of what's around it, just kind of the context to allow that height deviation that way.

But I do think it's something we will look at with new zones.

The UGC, as we know, is kind of keeping us together right now and allowing residential urban development.

Because it does allow higher density and does allow that urban form.

So it's just a tool we've had in place for a while.

We haven't revisited the four stories.

I remember at the time we kind of looked to see what would be a reasonable height and then did the deviation to have it on a case-by-case basis.

- Okay.

My hypothesis would be that the applicant has asked about or suggested the three story limit as a way to hopefully win favor when the UGC itself was written for something taller.

Just something for me to think about as a council person.

- Right.

I defer to the applicant.

I'm not, I just know what he has conveyed to us.

- Right, we didn't follow the process.

They haven't gotten to speak.

All right.

Thank you, Karen.

- Councilman Ledford, I see your light.

But before you make a motion to defer I would like to give the applicant opportunity to speak.

Mr.

Applicant, would you like to speak before the council before we make a motion?

- [Applicant] Yes, sir.

- Okay.

Please come at this time.

- All right.

Well, I hope I won't need all nine minutes.

Just to kind of reiterate, we have no intention whatsoever of getting into the neighborhood in which Ms. Hammock lives.

We would be keeping a landscape buffer of at least 25 feet.

So the trees would remain.

We wouldn't have any buildings right in anyone's backyard.

The note was certainly heard about density.

However, the three stories was, A, we thought it would be good for the neighborhood, but also it does make the property a little bit more manageable from our end with the construction and then sort of limiting the amount of units that our staff then has to take on all at once.

That being the case, we were looking for UGC because we did think that that fit.

It was actually during the RPA commission where we heard that this was something that the council and I guess it was the commission as well was desiring to move UGC this direction.

Which is the reason we've kind of shifted the project a little bit.

Trying to pay attention to what the city's desires are and work within those limits.

As far as condition number two, we have no problem meeting that.

That's not a big deal at all.

There is a daycare currently on the property.

The plan would be to build them a new facility as well as a couple of buildings.

And then at the time that we needed to move into that space we would be able to move them hopefully flawlessly into another space, an upgraded space which would be a good am amenity for not only the property but hopefully the community.

Thank you.

- Thank you.

Councilman Ledford?

- Mr. Chairman, with that, I move to defer until March 8th.

- Second.

- All right.

We have a motion on the floor to defer until March the 8th with a proper second.

Are there any questions or comments from the council?

All in favor, aye?

- [Council members] Aye.

- Any opposed, no?

Motion to defer until March 8th does carry.

Moving now into resolutions.

Madam Clerk, if there are no objections from the council would you please read 7 A through E, please?

- Item A, a resolution authorizing the Mayor or his designee to enter into a second agreement, to exercise option to renew with Cromwell Development I LLC, in substantially the form attached for an additional term of one year through March 31st, 2023 for the use of the gymnasium at Cromwell Hills Apartments to operate programs for youth, young adults, and families on the property located at 3940 Camellia Drive and further identified as a portion of tax map 137E-A-001.

Item B, a resolution authorizing the mayor or his designee to enter into a third agreement to exercise option to renew with Dardenelle Long in substantially the form attached for the lease of the barn at Brown Acres Golf Course for the keeping of animals consistent with zoning requirements at the address of 406 Round Road on a portion of tax map number 158I-G-001 for an additional term of one year through March 31st, 2023 for the monthly rent of $200.

Item C, a resolution authorizing the mayor or his designee to enter into a second agreement to exercise option to renew with Chattanooga Hockey, Inc. in substantially the form attached for the additional term of one year through March 31st, 2023 for the continued use of a portion of the skate park property at 1785 Reggie White Boulevard identified as tax map number 145K-E-001.01 for the annual rent of $1.

Item D, a resolution authorizing the mayor or his designee to enter into a second agreement to exercise option to renew with the Chattanooga Housing Authority in substantially the form attached for an additional term of one year through March 1st, 2023 for the use of the Sheila Jennings Wellness Center to operate programs for youth, young adults, and families on the property located at 1201 Poplar Street and further identified as a portion of tax map number 145F-A-002.

Item E, a resolution authorizing the Administrator for the Department of Economic Development to apply for, and if awarded, accept Emergency Solution Grant funds from the Tennessee Housing Development Agency, THDA, for approximately $161,250.

- Councilwoman Burz?

- Motion to approve.

- All right, we have a motion on the floor to approve items 7 A through E. Were there any questions or comments before we vote?

All in favor, aye?

- [Council members] Aye.

- Any opposed, no?

So moved.

Madam Clerk, if you would, 7 F, please.

- A resolution confirming Mayor Kelly's appointment of Karitsa Jones as Administrator for the Department of Early Learning.

- Councilwoman Hill?

- Move to approve.

- Second.

- All right.

We have a motion on the floor to approve with a proper second.

Questions or comments before we vote?

All in favor, aye?

- [Council members] Aye.

- Any opposed, no?

The motion to approve Ms. Jones does carry.

Congratulations.

Where are you at, Ms. Jones?

(clapping) Congratulations.

Moving now to 7 G. - A resolution confirming Mayor Kelly's appointment of Mande Lawrence as the Chief Human Resources Officer.

- Councilwoman Hill?

- Move to approve.

- Second.

- All right.

We have a motion on the floor to approve with a proper second.

Any questions or comments before we vote?

All in favor, aye?

- [Council members] Aye.

- Any opposed, no?

Motion to appoint Ms. Lawrence as Human Resource Officer does carry.

Congratulations, Ms. Lawrence.

(clapping) All right.

Now, moving to parks and public works.

Madam Clerk, if there's no objection from the council would you please take 7 H and I together, please?

- Item H, a resolution authorizing the Department of Public Works and Transportation to apply for, and if awarded, accept a Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) grant, for an amount up to $25 million.

Item I, a resolution authorizing the Department of Public Works and Transportation to contract with CDM Smith, Inc. for grant writing and to collect data, compile the required benefit-cost analysis, and assemble the full grant application package for the firm fixed price of $150,000.

- Councilman Hester?

- Moved to approve.

- [Council Members] Second.

- All right, we have a motion on the floor to approve items 7 H and I with a proper second.

Are there any questions or comments before we vote?

All in favor, aye?

- [Council members] Aye.

- Any opposed, no?

So moved.

Moving now to purchases.

Mr. Goldberg?

- Good evening, Mr. Chairman, council members.

We have five purchases tonight.

First one is citywide services, public works.

Purchase of 2 Elgin Broom Bear Dual 4.5 yard street sweepers from Samson Equipment Company.

This purchase utilizes Sourcewell contract 093021-ELG.

And the amount is $631,120 for both.

Second item is from the fleet management division of public works.

This is a new blanket contract for long-term vehicle leasing from Enterprise Fleet Management.

This purchase utilizes Sourcewell contract 060618-EFM.

This will be a four year contract with an annual amount not to exceed $190,000 per year.

Item 3, facilities division of public works.

Purchase of CertainTeed ceiling tiles.

Two bids were received and the award goes to Wallace Tile, Inc. as the best bid meeting specifications.

The amount is $43,342.80.

Item 4, waste resources division of public works.

New blanket contract for bypass pumping rental equipment.

Three bids were received and the award goes to Xylem Dewatering solutions, Inc. as the best bid meeting specifications.

There was a lower bidder that did not meet specifications and also took exceptions to the city's standard terms and conditions.

This will be a four year contract with an amount not to exceed $150,000 per year.

And finally, from the fire department we have the purchase of 48 supply line fire hoses.

One bid was received.

The invitation to bid was re-advertised and produced no additional bidders.

The award goes to Tennessee Fire Equipment Safety Supply.

The amount is $30,924.

- All right.

You've heard the request for tonight's purchases.

What's the pleasure of the council?

- Move of approval.

- Second.

- All right.

We have a motion on the floor to approve with a proper second.

Any questions or comments before we vote?

All in favor, aye?

- [Council members] Aye.

- Any opposed, no?

- Motion to approve does carry.

That does conclude all items on our agenda.

We now come to the portion of time that we recognize persons wishing to address the council this afternoon.

Is there anyone in the audience?

Council, I am not seeing any other hands.

What is your pleasure?

- Move to adjourn quickly.

(laughing) (gavel bangs) - We're adjourned.

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