County Commission To Have Showdown Vote Next Wednesday On Controversial East Brainerd Subdivision

  • Thursday, December 12, 2019

The County Commission next Wednesday will have a showdown vote on a controversial Ooltewah subdivision.

Commissioners on Wednesday heard hours of debate on converting a former 61-acre dairy farm by East Hamilton High School into a 228-unit development. It includes 120 villas with the remainder lots for single-family homes.

Owners of the farm, Sheila and James Kincaid, said they are ready to sell and move closer to their children, but said the deal is contingent on the zoning going through. They said some portions of the farm were sold years earlier, making possible a line of homes along the main road as well as the Shadow Ridge subdivision.

Developer Billy McCoy said the single-family homes would be on the outer portion of the development with the villas (townhomes) toward the center.

He said the build-out on the project would likely be five years and nothing would be happening at the site for about a year.

Commissioner Sabrena Smedley, noting that as a realtor she is in the development business, said she is concerned that there is getting to be too much congestion in about a two-mile section centered on the intersection of East Brainerd Road and Ooltewah-Ringgold Road. 

She said it will be many years until the widening of East Brainerd Road is completed and much longer than that until new lanes are added on Ooltewah-Ringgold Road.

She said there will be significant traffic going to the new East Hamilton Middle School at Apison, and she said county school officials apparently plan to make East Hamilton High a "mega school." Previously, the East Hamilton high school and middle school were on the same campus.

Commissioner Smedley said some 1,000 residences are set to come online in that vicinity in addition to the latest McCoy project. Mr. McCoy challenged that figure, saying some of those have been completed already.

Commissioner Smedley commented that she has heard that developer McCoy "has been going around saying that Commissioner (Chester) Bankston and I want to stop development." Mr. McCoy did not deny the comment.

A traffic engineer who opposes the rezoning said the situation could worsen until traffic is backed up for long distances, blocking subdivision entrances and a fire hall/ambulance station.

Commissioner Warren Mackey noted that commissioners were told that the project could not go forward - even with the proper zoning - if TDOT says the situation is too congested to allow a new connection to Ooltewah-Ringgold Road.

Commissioner Tim Boyd said he drives that route every day going to his job in North Georgia. He said at 6:45 a.m. it takes him about 10 minutes to get through the school traffic. He said there is no problem in coming home at 6:45 p.m.

He said the county needs to keep approving such projects, or he said they will be lost to Bradley County or North Georgia. He said, "A tax increase is coming," and he said growth money is one way to stave it off.

John Bridger, executive director of the Regional Planning Agency, said he does not believe the congestion situation has gotten to the point that development in that vicinity needs to be held off. 

James Pratt, another major local developer, spoke in favor of the McCoy project. Asked about development restrictions in Hamilton County, he acknowledged there are fewer hurdles to building in Bradley County. 

 

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