Cleveland Councilman Dale Hughes said building a new elementary school on Georgetown Road would be a mistake due to ever-increasing traffic problems in that vicinity.
He said, "That area already has three schools, and we're going to get another school there? It's already a real bottleneck."
Officials said Prospect Elementary, Hopewell Elementary and Cleveland Middle School "all start at the same time. Then you have people coming in on Highway 60 from Dayton."
Also, 200 more apartments are slated in that triangle of schools.
Cleveland School Director Martin Ringstaff said earlier this year,"We are in dire need of an elementary school to relieve the other six overpopulated elementary schools in our city."
He said the schools "purchased land off Georgetown Road for the location of our seventh
elementary school. We have preliminary plans drawn up for a 550-student elementary school that we believe will suffice our student population for years to come."
Councilman Avery Johnson said, "Cleveland's number one problem is traffic. We don't have the capacity. We've got traffic problems all over Cleveland."
He said new roads need to be built and others widened.
Officials are considering extending Paul Huff Parkway that leads from I-75. Some land needs to be purchased for that project.
Mayor Tom Rowland said he was advised that it will be six years before the planned improvement of Highway 60 in the vicinity of Georgetown Road is a reality. He said 342 properties need to be acquired that are in the right-of-way and it will take two years to round those up.
Jennifer Flynn of TDOT said, "We have a project in development to reconstruct a 3.2-mile section of SR-60 in Bradley County from the four-lane section north of I-75 (Westlake Drive) to SR-306. The project is in preliminary design and we are preparing the right-of-way plans. We are currently awaiting additional federal funding for the right-of-way phase .
"Although an environmental document for a 7.9-mile section of SR-60 from the four-lane section north of I-75 (Westlake Drive) in Bradley County to SR-58 in Hamilton County was approved by the Federal Highway Administration in June 2014, there are currently no other projects in development on this area of SR-60. Additional phases will be considered in future budget cycles based on the availability of state and federal transportation funding."