Residents come out in full force to oppose development in Mountain Creek

There was no open seat at Tuesday night's City Council meeting

CHATTANOOGA (WDEF) – Residential development brings about a lot of change: economic growth, added traffic, even environmental things. One thing it also brings is opposition, and it showed up Tuesday night at City Council.

A packed house showed up for only one item: the very first thing on the agenda, which was the rezoning of a land tract in the 1100 block of Mountain Creek Road. Resident after resident after resident had some reason to voice opposition to the plan of building a 220-unit apartment complex. Those reasons ranged from water runoff to how the added traffic is going to impact the safety of the residents.

One resident of the area, Angela Amunategui, said this, “From a family standpoint, there are things that normal families can do that we can’t. I won’t allow my son to take the trash down to the curb because I’m afraid of the zooming cars. Same with checking the mail. Each time I go to check the mail, I have to pause and do it really quick or else a car just buzzes right by. It’s a dangerous endeavor almost on a daily basis.”

The amount of opposition caused the developer, ASA Engineering, to withdraw its application. It doesn’t mean there’s no plan to develop the land. That plan will come with the input of the community.

From ASA Engineering’s Principal Landscape Architect & Land Planner Allen Jones: “Our goal is to work with the community to find something that’s both workable for the current property, the sellers of the property who’ve been there for 75 years, and also finding something that’s a great product and a great asset to the Mountain Creek community.”

The city also has a hand in this, and it happens to be the responsibility of new Administrator of City Planning for Chattanooga, Dan Reuter. He’s been in this job for a month, and says he’s prepared to make this disagreement turn into something more positive.

“We’ll have a discussion of the community issues, the community goals, and then we’ll try to zero in on what’s the right use of properties that are still available for development.”

Even with the developers withdrawing their application, there’s still plenty of work to do. Reuter says he doesn’t think it’s going to be hard to find some common ground so that all parties can benefit.