(upbeat music) - [Narrator] You're watching highlights of the Chattanooga city council meeting a production of WTC, PBS.

- All right, council for this next item that is in my district.

I'm going to turn the floor, the chair, I'm sorry.

Over to the vice chair Smith to let him chair this next item.

So Mr. Vice chair, the chair is yours.

- Thank you, sir.

All right.

Madam clerk out of my place - And resolution are proven especially exceptions permit for residential plan unit development for properties located in the 4,600 block on fire peak trail and the 831,000 blocks of Reese Lake road, subject certain conditions.

- Thank you ma'am.

I am fairly certain that we have the applicant and opposition here this evening.

All right, sir.

Please share your screen and give us a presentation on this item.

- I'm gonna last I briefed y'all fully it committee last week, so I won't go over the full history that will cover course the basics of the land use and zoning patterns of the year, if that's okay.

Okay, so this is a request for a special permit exceptions for planning new development.

It's called future 225 residential units on 50 acres of land.

As you see here on your screen, this shows you the site the property is located at eight 50 Reads Lake road basically just North of the Marsh and Springs road of us 27 alarm Morris and along sorry, Mountain Creek road as you see here.

If you look at the land use development patterns here you do have a mix of land use patterns to the North.

For the most part, you have single family detached.

You do have a condo development called the Montclair East condominiums.

You see right here on your screen to the North of most of it is single family residential to the North.

There is no adopted land use plan for this location.

The comprehensive plan, which adopted in 2016 basically recommends level one and level two for this area, which means very, again limited development to low intensity development.

It doesn't specify a density, but basically describes it as limited developed a low intensity development.

There are some constraints on the site.

You do have, particularly on the portion that South East of Mountain Creek road, you have the the mountain Creek runs through this property.

You have the, in the light blue, you see there is that the floodway and the floodway again, you cannot put any structures in, and then you had the darker blue, which is your a hundred year flood.

You can fill that in, but there are some some environmental constraints on this property.

So the planning commission hearing from the staff's recommendation and the opposition and the applicant concurred with staff's recommendation to approve with that condition.

And it was an eight three vote to approve.

- Mr. Pratt your time is starting.

- Okay, thank you guys for allowing me to speak.

My name is James Pratt and I represent Pratt Associates and Pratt Home Builders.

I want everyone to know that as of last night, we petitioned to the council and asked for an automatic referral for 60 days, but that request was denied.

I'll go into more detail later as for the reasons for that defer request I really wanna drive home one major point.

The property will be developed we bought the property to develop.

We plan to develop it.

You wanna try to explain why developing it under this park plan is best for all in the long run.

This plan does so many good things.

Plus that's remember the professionals at the regional planning agency staff strongly endorsed the plan.

This plan set aside 21 acres of green space which we would be willing to sell to the city as a dedicated park space by doing this it allows all the green space, including the creeks streams, the famous postdoc tree and buffer zones on the property to be protected.

There'll be a public walking path through the property.

There's even another 10 acres of green space as part of the development that will be owned and controlled by an HOA.

So out of 50 plus acres we're proposing approximately 30 acres of protected green space.

The question always comes up well, what's the plans for the clubhouse parcel that is in litigation?

Under the right scenario we'd be willing to conserve that property and donate it or sell it yet to be a named entity.

In summary, we feel strongly developing the profits under this plan or some post derivative of this plan is the best possible outcome for all parties.

I.e us, the city, the Friends of Mountain Creek North Chickamauga Conservancy and the public.

In addition to all the benefits I just mentioned we have determined that since there is such a need for affordable and diverse housing in Chattanooga we think the apartment piece would be a perfect place to include some height of affordable housing.

We realized that the apartment piece is the real rub with the Friends of mountain Creek but after evaluating the situation for the entire city, it makes perfect sense to explore how to include affordable housing as part of this great development.

We all, as citizens of this city and County know there's a real shortage of affordable and diverse housing.

We'd like to be a part of the remedy of this situation.

This would be a perfect place to do that.

Single family housing, reversing affordable housing, parks, green spaces, walking trails all adjacent to a public park.

What could be better for our city?

Now let's look at the possible scenario.

The property is developed as a strike or one subdivision which is the way its zone, what the white most of it is own the entire site would be subdivided in single family locks.

That means every inch of this property would be owned by individual home homeowners no dedicated green space, no walking trail no public access to the proposed park via this property no posto and no affordable and diverse house.

The development may or may not have an HOA with covenants and restrictions protecting the value of the homes.

In other words, all control is lost over what this property looks like in 10 years.

In reality, under this scenario there would be low protection of strings and string buffers.

I wanna be perfectly clear.

We think that this property should be developed under this pilot plan, and we really don't want to develop it under strike or one zone.

We're now asking for a 60 day deferral so we can explore all possibilities for this product plan to include affordable and diverse housing in any other areas that are beneficial to all.

And if it's not deferred, or if it's denied there'll be no green space, no park, no walking trails no posto, no affordable and diverse house.

Plus your known of what may happen on the 2.8 acre clubhouse piece that is in litigation.

In closing, here's what I wanted one on the council to concern.

We bought this for a property.

We had the right to develop a partners.

We have since bought another piece of property right in the middle of our property is zoned R three, which allows a park.

We know the community does not wanna park but I would like to develop this property with apartments on it.

When we bought it was taken away by this council and we're fighting that with litigation.

This part is denied.

Or if it's not the first word it takes away all possibilities for settlement of the lawsuit.

We have heard since we started this process.

No, no, no, not only from this council, but from the friend of mountain Creek, we have negotiated in good faith through apprehend with North Chickamauga Creek Conservancy and his latest Saturday.

He had conversations with leaders of Friends of Mountain Creek.

We have drastically changed our plan from the original plan.

The opposition has not budged in any form or fashion and nobody with the Friends of Mountain Creek has Jake has been genuine in working towards a path forward.

They've trespassed on our property.

They've done unscrupulous deeds.

And as late as this weekend they have not done what they said they would do.

They simply can't be trusted.

This case has a lot of moving parts and it's very complex.

Why would you deny the opportunity to continue discussions and hopefully find some actors that we have not been able to find as of today?

Why would you close the doors on any possibility of selling a lawsuit?

It could cost the city a lot of money in the Friends of Mountain Creek, get something they don't want versus a few partners stuck onto some power land.

They can hardly be seen from Mountain Creek road or replayed road.

Council members were asked, were formally asking for 60 day referral of this case.

Thank you - Mr.

Chair, vice chair.

How many have signed up to speak to not in opposition of this pug development that includes apartments?

And your Mic's muted sir.

- Sorry about that.

Right before the meeting, when I looked we were right around 160, I would say were close to 170 at this point that have used a topic that has to do with opposition of the pod.

So over 160, sir.

Okay, now I admit it's total.

I don't know who wants to start Steve.

I would just start with you.

You're the first person I brought in and I am starting the timer now, sir.

- Okay, thank you, Mr. Vice chair.

I'm gonna attempt to share a screen here.

So bear with me.

I'm not very good at this.

- You've got it.

- Okay, thank you very much.

So I am Steve Hunt, my family and I reside at 10 27 Reads Lake road, and I'm a board member of Friends of Mountain Creek 501 C3 non-profit formed to represent our neighborhoods.

We speak for over 5,000 petition signers.

Council as you have heard this past Friday, Mr. Pratt invited me to meet with him.

And the next day, my neighbor Chuck grant and I did just that, nevermind that this invitation came after the PUD was conceived, developed and presented to the RPA without an ounce of community input.

We are indeed thankful he reached out.

Friends of Mountain Creek has been forthright contrary to Mr. Pratt's accusations.

North Chickamauga Creek Conservancy does not speak for friends of mountain Creek and they never have and they have acknowledged they never have.

On Saturday over the course of just over two hours, Mr. Pratt told us what this property would look like with the putter proof versus without the PUD in any putz scenario.

Mr. Pratt said he would build high intensity on this property, which is Friends of Mountain creeks.

Primary objection, no solution that Mr. Pratt proposed under a PUD eliminates this out of character high intensity development, no solution that Mr. Pratt proposed does anything to help that issue.

Residents of our rural neighborhoods should be allowed quiet enjoyment as our current R1 and A1 zoning allows.

As for the site plan of the proposed PUD, you can see that this land is adjacent to an overwhelm I'm out of R1 and A1 land true that the parcels noted as condo PUD and apartment PUD indicate medium density.

But these were developed under a previous PUD that promised the area what always be green space.

Allowing this Pratt PUD would be a tragedy for those who came before us.

This slide shows the neighbors in the surrounding area who opposed this PUD.

It is not all the neighbors that opposed this PUD but is it is the ones in close proximity to this land that live here directly adjacent to it.

The next slide shows the one neighbor that supports it and that is our friends at North Chickamauga Creek Conservancy.

The last slide that I have is it shows the uncharacteristic low density versus high density at this crossroads placing this high intensity development in incredibly uncharacteristic for our neighborhood.

If you stand at the intersection of Reese Lake road and mountain Creek road, and look South there is medium density and high density development but if you simply pivot and look North, there's nothing but R1 and A1 zoning for miles.

On Saturday Mr. Pratt, explain that without a PUD the property would be developed under its current R1 zoning, which is good news for us.

That's our preference.

Mr. Pratt went on to promise that his company would not build under those circumstances but rather he would sell the property to a production Home Builder who would cram around 185 single family starter homes and move on.

But this is not bad news for us since it will provide the much needed affordable housing that our city so desires.

We welcome it here at Friends of Mountain Creek we have heard that RPAs estimations the property could be developed under the existing R1 zoning to a capacity of about 120 homes.

An engineer working on our behalf determine that number to be 110 homes.

And it sounds like that is much needed affordable housing under the current R1 zoning.

Unfortunately, we've been unable to come to a meeting of the minds as Mr. Pratt is unyielding on a PUD that includes high intensity.

The residents of the area are against introducing another high intensity development here.

We've been talking about and negotiating with Mr. Pratt about this property for three years, Mr. Pratt called our community meetings that Councilman Henderson organized as chip Henderson's dog and pony shows.

Our desire is for you to deny this PUD and stick to the comprehensive plan.

Please do not let high intensity development in our neighborhood.

Thank you very much.

My neighbor Bob Dyer we'll speak next.

- My name is Bob Dyer and I live at 41 43 court yard and I am going to discuss three areas of concern with this development and that is flooding Springs and Reads Lake.

The city relies on the federal...

The floodway covers 16 of the 50 acre a quarry site.

I'm speaking about flooding now.

The city relies on the federal emergency management agencies model with human analysis to basis engineering decisions on the acceptability of building near the floodway.

This model is not under the control to see.

The fact is that this analysis is badly outdated.

The model lends at the boundary of spring Lake West at seven 14 elevation further labels the area upstream is the area of minimal flood hazard.

Try and telling that to my neighbor is upstream of the point, not non conservatively.

And in the past, Chattanooga has still done 80% of the fund plan along its freaks.

Recently, the city allowed two homes to be built on a Creek drive at the seven 14 elevation using this analysis to justification.

This was likely a bad decision.

Chattanooga should not permit filling in the floodway without an accurate model to predict consequences.

This PUD on a suddenly those in the floodplain and floodways and mixed flooding risk worse.

My next slide next two slides would show significant flooding in the minimal hazard area.

So-called Minho hazard area behind a whole my white springs drive.

And another one on the cross on the opposite bank during the Eastern 2020 on Creek drive.

So in summary thawing the floodway downstream will choke the drainage from spring Lake West.

The second topic of Springs, all the core area property has interconnected subterranean water not as shown here.

Current homes have been built directly over these Springs.

In fact, eight of the 25 new townhomes on daily have water issues.

Runners have had to install expensive mitigation including grant house, and some pumps dehumidifiers, encapsulation of sub floors sometimes in response to molder walls and a few more Bailey PUD home owners have suffered expense to degrade, to regrade surfaces drain wet weather Springs somehow are not yet remedy.

Other neighbors have shared the details with you on foundation Jackson they put under their homeless for what weather sprints.

So massive land filling around the Reads Lake will block drainage from adjacent property.

It will redirect Springwater towards neighbors and it will reduce premial surplus where it is needed badly.

The chicken and the egg that the dispersion of Reads Lake and its wetlands is an unresolved concern.

The PUD relies on a 2015 Corps of engineers report that incorrectly States Reads Lake as an artificial Lake constructed with a golf course in the 1970s evidence to the contrary it includes U.S Geological survey maps showy Reads Lake existence in the 1930s and residents who have lived near Reads Lake road.

Well, it tested the fact that Reads Lake, as I said even prior to 1920, are we really to believe that the road was named 60 years before the Lake was created?

Reads Lake is waters of the U.S. - [Man] Okay for the initiative time, I'm not gonna display any slides, but I am gonna hit a couple of hot points on my discussion about the roads.

Westfield road runs downhill from mountain view road, Reads Lake road.

It's a narrow curving road, approximately a quarter mile long with no shoulder.

It's only a drainage ditch on each side.

If a car were to break down on West view road there's nowhere to move out of traffic lane.

Most of the roads in the Mountain Creek area do not have sidewalks for pedestrians.

There's considerable pedestrian traffic as residents walk their pets or residents themselves walk through their health throughout the area.

Additional traffic from new development would pose significantly increased risk for pedestrians.

I want to emphasize Westview Road and the road infrastructure throughout the Mountain Creek area is stressed and inadequate for its current vehicle use.

It would require significant funds to eliminate the hazards associated with the euros.

- Mr. Todd time, time is up for opposition.

Please feel free to start.

- [Laramore] Okay, thank you very much.

Thank you for your time.

I'm Tim Laramore.

I'm the director of the North Chickamauga Creek Conservancy.

You've all heard from me about our work on this plan for over two years we've been working with Pratt on this plan and Mr. Henderson, you referenced earlier the Hillock farms development out on 153.

And I sat in meetings with you about that development and thought that was a great success.

The way that we were able to cooperate and get some key negotiation with the developer.

And we learned from that when we came into this situation when we saw after those initial public meetings how both sides had kind of gone into their corners.

And there wasn't a lot of negotiation as neighbors to everyone, we decided to start dialogue.

And in starting dialogue, we identified the ways in which our goals for conservation and access community access aligned with those with Friends Mountain Creek.

And we took those to Pratt and we were surprised that one after one, one after another, we began to get concessions.

The postdoc was protected.

40% of the property becomes not only protected but also public space.

That's key.

It's not just that it's not being built on because it's a power line or it's a stream buffer but this will be open to the public.

The stream buffers were protected and 6 acres for public use that is far more open would be available behind.

So we decided that this was a great plan and introduced it to Friends of Mountain Creek.

And we got more desires from them about the lowering of the density and other things.

And the one thing that we can't get past as you've heard time and time again, is the rental issue.

And that is where we do not cooperate because we represent renters.

We believe renters are stakeholders in our community and have been at times a little bit alarmed by the ability to dismiss people who rent in our community as somehow not welcome in the community.

And this is surrounded by rentals and we thought that it was a good plan.

And so we urge the council not to squander an opportunity to have some key conservation gains because of what we see is simply an opposition to rentals.

Thank you.

- Thank you, Mr. Laramore.

- So Mr. Laramore, I keep hearing a lot of things tied together for the future.

You understand that we're just talking about this one PUD not all the other things with the clubhouse and the lawsuit and all of those, are we on the same page?

- [Laramore] We are absolutely on the same page.

We have not been a part of the lawsuit.

We have not been in that at all.

We are not talking about the clubhouse at all.

We are talking about the protected space behind the clubhouse which we think would be valuable for the public.

- Thank you.

- Council, Mitchell.

- I don't have a question, but I do have a comment.

My goodness!

You got unbelievable conservation groups involved in the park, but we're not talking about the park.

We've never talked about the park, but I wanna say something and I'll put my record up about open space and Parkway on with anybody in Chattanooga.

You got a person drawing units in the floodway.

I just really feel that you need to maybe reexamined or get that spirit back.

That is the good fight, the true good fight.

And I think that this match this team.

Well, I'll tell you what my mother said, "don't say anything bad about people" but I will say this is not my mother's more to the motor Creek Conservancy.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

- I would say just the opposition from the community Mr.

Chair, could we ask that all of those that are intent in attendance to not, if they are in opposition in this PUD I would like for them to raise their hand at this time somewhere on your computer is a raise hand button.

I would like to ask you to raise your hand at this time so that we can note how many is actually own this zoom call in opposition and the number still climbing Mr.

Chair.

It looks like we're up to about 97, 98.

I think the council can look over there in the attendance column and see that there are 98 residents of the mountain Creek community on this call tonight that is in opposition that is asking this council to hear their voice and deny this PUD.

Council I'm asking for your support tonight and helping me represent the voice of the people of mountain Creek by denying this PUD, Mr. Vice chair, I'll make a motion to deny this PUD.

- Okay, thank you, sir.

No further hands.

I have a motion and a second for denial, roll call madam clerk.

- Council member Mitchell.

- This is for denial - Four denial.

- Yes.

- Council Ledford - I abstain.

- Council members Gilbert.

- Yes.

- Council member Coonrod - Yes.

- Council member Byrd.

- Yes.

- Council member Berz.

- Yes.

- Council member Oglesby.

- Yes.

- Chairman Henderson - Yes.

- And with that, Mr.

Chair, the chair is yours again, sir.

- All right, thank you, Mr. Leford I appreciate you staying in here and you did do a great job.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] You've been watching highlights of the Chattanooga city council meeting a production of WTC PBS.

For a copy of this program, please call (423) 702-7800.