HAMILTON COUNTY, Tenn. — A proposal that would’ve limit housing density in parts of Hamilton County was temporarily put on hold this week as commissioners weigh their options.
The proposal would use only the amount of buildable land to determine how many homes can go up, instead of the total piece of the property.
Realtors and developers also spoke against the resolution, saying more homes are needed to combat the rising cost of buying a house.
“When you take land out of the use for development, it increases the land costs that necessarily have to go into every home.”
Julian Bell is the executive officer of the Chattanooga Home Builders Association. He says 91,000 people commute into Hamilton County for work.
“We believe that one of the major reasons for that is the lower cost of housing in our surrounding counties. We’re doing a lot as a county and the city to attract industry here.”
Commissioner Steve Highlander, who created the proposal, tells us that people in the areas he represents are voicing a need to limit the number of new homes.
“People there are very concerned with the over building and the lack of sewers, the lack of roads…”
Residents in areas like Snow Hill Road in Ooltewah say there’s not enough infrastructure to maintain the growth happening.
One resident told us there’s a lot of safety issues because of this, and these areas need a pause on growth to catch up.
“We’ve seen an exponential amount of growth.”
Darren Lewis says the attempts to fix roads where he lives isn’t sufficient.
“The road itself needs to be widened, at least in our part of the county, and some guard rails should be put in.”
The residential planning authority defines net density as determining how many units can be built on developable parts of a site.
That excludes bodies of water and other land that can’t be built on.
“I think things need to slow down a little bit so that, so that the bigger issues around infrastructure for the community can be addressed,” Lewis says.
Lewis says a recent deadly accident is an example of infrastructure safety concerns.
“Near Ooltewah High School, a high school student went off the road and was tragically killed.”
Bell says roads and sewers do need fixing. However…
“At the same time, we need to provide attainable housing for our county’s residents.”
Commissioners moved further discussion about this proposal to their March 5th meeting.