by Ellen Gerst
A growth plan for unincorporated parts of Hamilton County met another hurdle Wednesday.
But while Plan Hamilton remains in limbo, county commissioners voted to pause some development decisions in the interim, which could slow growth temporarily.
New plat applications, which govern how land is used within developments like subdivisions, will not be reviewed for at least 30 days.
“We need to get people off the dime. It’s only a 30-day stay — on plats. It doesn’t stop development,” said Commissioner Chip Baker, R-Signal Mountain, who proposed the pause. “This is simply to get both sides together, to negotiate and come up with an opportunity for something we’ve been working on and spent a lot of money.”
County commissioners last week tabled a pair of resolutions for Plan Hamilton after several said they weren’t comfortable with the two options they faced — one including amendments added by a home builders’ group and one without.
On Wednesday, commission Chair Jeff Eversole, R-Ooltewah, brought the topic back up. The County Attorney’s Office had brought a legal issue to his attention, Eversole said by phone after the meeting.
It seems, he said, something went wrong with the previous week’s vote.
(READ MORE: Vote on Hamilton County growth plan delayed, again)
“Legally, we were advised we needed to do something to bring it to attention,” Eversole said at the meeting.
One word in the resolutions — asking commissioners to “adopt,” rather than “review” the plan drafts — meant they weren’t valid for a vote.
County commissioners narrowly voted Wednesday to keep the topic tabled, which means their ability to take action on it expired.
Now, the plan drafts will head back to the Regional Planning Commission. There, planning commissioners will review the drafts again, after first doing so in May, and approve a version that can legally be considered by the county board.
A PAUSE
With the plan once again delayed, Baker brought his proposal to freeze all new plat decisions in the county for 30 days. That time period can be extended until the plan is adopted.
Residents of the more rural parts of the county have advocated for that kind of moratorium for months in response to continued growth as plan discussions and revisions have dragged on.
At a public meeting in his district last week, Baker said he would consider a moratorium if the plan wasn’t passed.
Baker’s pause passed by one vote. It’ll go into effect July 2.
“The intent of this is to get motivated to finish the plan,” Baker said.
Plats are plans that govern how land in a certain development will be used, including plans for entries and exits, water drainage and retention and home lots.
That means that for now, the approval of any new subdivisions or large developments is effectively paused.
Other development decisions, including rezoning land and subdivisions within the city of Chattanooga, can continue.
“I would have loved it to be rezonings, too,” resident Kim Helton, a member of a citizen committee that reviewed the plan for parts of Ooltewah and Harrison, said by phone. “But if that makes the home builders go, ‘Well, we need to get this done quickly and be a lot more open to what the residents want’ — I hope that’s what that means.”
Helton said some residents wanted a moratorium on all building in the county while the plan was being finalized as a way to lessen the strain on infrastructure.
“What’s happening now, there’s no planning to it,” she said. “Just throwing subdivisions up right and left on roads that can’t handle current traffic.”
There are 15 plats on the July 14 agenda for the Regional Planning Commission, Bryan Shults, development director for the Regional Planning Agency, told commissioners Wednesday. Some of those are in the city, so they won’t be paused under the moratorium.
“Does this mean those don’t move forward? Even though they were submitted back in April?” Shults asked.
“It’s effective July 2,” Baker responded.
Some commissioners said Baker didn’t give enough notice for his proposal. Under state law, they’re supposed to give at least a week’s notice to allow time for the public to respond, except for emergency cases. Commissioner Greg Beck, D-North Brainerd, said he would vote no because he hadn’t had time to look over the proposal.
“This is us trying to sneak one by with nobody in the audience to support it or against it,” said Commissioner Joe Graham, R-Lookout Valley. “This is us trying to do a last-ditch effort to stop growth in Hamilton County, in my opinion.”
Graham said he feels the county is signaling it’s closed to further economic development.
(READ MORE: Hamilton County Mayor Wamp says $3 billion project not realistic for McDonald Farm)
“This sends a horrible, horrible message,” Graham said, “to not just Hamilton County citizens, but to Nashville, the people who try to help us get the jobs, to the chamber of commerce here locally and for the state. This sends a message to everybody in the United States that Hamilton County doesn’t want your business.”
Eversole said there are around 5,000 homes already permitted in his area alone that haven’t been built yet. The plan is meant to address growth in the future, he said, not what’s already been approved.
“So will it stop development?” he said by phone. “No.”
Commissioner Mike Chauncey, R-East Ridge, said the moratorium could hold up the construction of hundreds of homes.
“All of those applicants that were expecting their cases to be heard next month, they’ve already had their properties rezoned,” he said by phone after the meeting. “They’ve already put in huge investments on infrastructure and made plans and have contractors coming to start work. And it was all put to a halt without any notice, nor did they even have an opportunity to come and speak.”
Very little of his district is in the unincorporated areas, Chauncey said. But he has constituents in the construction industry who could be affected, he said by phone.
“We just passed this, and you had no idea what you were doing,” Chauncey told Baker at the meeting. “It’s just an overreach of government, and I’m just tired of it. When’s it gonna stop?”
LEGAL ISSUE
The Regional Planning Commission in May sent a draft of the plan, along with the home builders’ proposed amendments, to county commissioners.
That planning body is the only one that can adopt a plan like the one being considered, under state law, and a County Commission can choose to accept it or disagree with it and send it back for changes, Eversole said.
A county board can’t adopt a comprehensive plan until it’s been certified by the planning board, legal adviser Janie Varnell told commissioners.
The Planning Commission’s intent was to have the county board review the draft and amendments and return it with guidance for planning commissioners’ final decision, Shults told commissioners.
“That didn’t happen last week,” Shults said. “A resolution was added to adopt it.”
Eversole said that language was included by planning staff after a June 11 committee meeting. Chauncey, who chairs the zoning committee, asked for two new resolutions to be drafted for the vote, one with home builder amendments and one without.
“When Commissioner Chauncey asked them to put in two resolutions, it came back from them with the word ‘adopt’ in it,” Eversole said.
Shults said the first version of the resolutions asked only for guidance.
“And we were directed last week, or week before, to change it to ‘adopt,'” he told commissioners. “And that’s what was tabled last week.”
Shults directed questions about the resolutions to a county spokesperson Wednesday. The planning agency’s director, Dan Reuter, had been on administrative leave for nearly a week by the time those resolutions were written.
Baker said if commissioners were only meant to give guidance, the discussion should have happened in a work session, not a regular meeting.
An attempt to take the plan back off the table did not pass Wednesday. Since no action was taken within a week of tabling, the plan should go back to the planning commissioners for further action.
Eversole said there is a required 30-day notice for items on the Planning Commission agenda. That window has passed for its July meeting, so the plan would likely not come up until mid-August, he said.
Helton said she hopes that meeting, like the one in May, can be held in the evening to give more residents a chance at going.
“Just to show this is important,” she said. “Everybody needs to be able to attend.”
Given the packed house for last week’s vote on the plan, Graham said it felt disrespectful Wednesday to do anything else with it without members of the public being notified and given a chance to voice their opinion.
“Somewhere, somebody dropped the ball,” said Commissioner Steve Highlander, R-Ooltewah.
HOUSING NEEDS
Housing stock has declined in the county in the past 20 years, while prices have risen, Josh Branum, with the Greater Chattanooga Realtors, told commissioners Wednesday.
The group has supported efforts by home builders to loosen some restrictions in the plan draft, allowing more dense development.
(READ MORE: Chattanooga home sales, prices rise last year despite national slowdown)
In 2012, nearly 1,500 homes were for sale in a given month, Branum said.
“Today, we have less than a third of that,” he said.
Demand has risen, he said, as more people are looking to move to Hamilton County. Since 2020, prices have spiked, he said. The county’s population is growing at a rate of around 1% a year, according to census data.
“This combination pushes home ownership out of reach for many working families, and it also puts pressure on rental markets and housing infrastructure,” he said.
Commissioner David Sharpe, D-Red Bank, said some of Branum’s numbers surprised him.
“As business-friendly as the state of Tennessee and Hamilton County like to present themselves in word, I would like to think in deed we should be doing the same to make it easier for people to build homes,” he said, “to sell homes, increase the level of availability, the supply so to speak, to help ensure we meet the demand.”
Contact Ellen Gerst at [email protected] or 423-757-6319.
Read the original story published on the Times Free Press here.