Last winter Mayor John Turner, Commissioner Katie Lamb, Planning Commission member Charles Melenyzer, Collegedale Tomorrow Chairman David Barto, and City Manager Ted Rogers toured the city of Franklin, Tennessee with several members of their planning staff. City Manager Rogers told them it was his hope that one day those planners would one day come down and take a look at Collegedale and tell us what they thought.
Monday, the 11th, Franklin Head of Planning Catherine Powers, Planner Micah Wood, Planner Erin Reinder's, and Codes Inspector Steve Valleys came to Collegedale to give us their assessment. The day was spent touring the city in four cars with City Commissioners, Ted Rogers, Codes Inspector John Gamble, Planning Commission members, and Collegedale Tomorrow members. The tour showed them VW, the new Apison Pike expansion, Southern Adventist University, Mckee Foods, Garden Plaza, Green Briar Cove, and many other jewels in the Collegedale area. But, the tour also showed the group the less desirable areas of the city so the local elected officials could try to come up with ways to clean them up. Lunch was had at the Garden Plaza Bistro, and several large stakeholders from the community joined the Planning Group and the elected officials.
Monday evening was the Planning Conference which was held during the regularly Planning Commission included the entire City Commission, and the membership of the Collegedale Tomorrow Advisory Group, and community stakeholders, guests, and the Franklin Planners. The meeting was moderated by Collegedale Tomorrow member Rocky Chambers and lasted about an hour and half.
Topics for the meeting were:
1. "What did you think of where Collegedale is today, and how can we improve?"
2. "What does a Planner do and how could Collegedale benefit from such a hire?"
3. "Collegedale has a Local Option Referendum on the ballot in November, how could we benefit from that being passed?"
4. "Carrots versus Stick approach to getting citizen's to clean up their properties?"
To question one, the Planners stated that Collegedale was years ahead of many cities because they had already taken the initiative with starting Collegedale Tomorrow, implementing the new Commercial Design Standards Ordinance, and starting to work on Residential Construction Standards as well as ways to clean up rentals and subdivisions. They said Collegedale was a beautiful community that had excellent potential but was threatened by the "wrong kind" of growth, and an imbalance in our revenue stream, tilted too towards a dependency on property taxes. But all in all years ahead of most small communities faced with similar problems.
To question two, the Planners stated a planner could work with the community, the developers, major stakeholders and city, pulling in all of the resources and comments, and help make Collegedale an even nicer place to live. Collegedale would benefit from the hire because a Planner would do nothing but work for the city's best interests, and make sure we had quality development that complimented other developments, versus a hodgepodge.
To question three, the Planners stated that to attract the kind of quality retail establishments Collegedale wants, that many of them would not come without family restaurants. And in most cases these family friendly, quality, restaurants serve alcohol by the drink, so yes we should pass it. If the city want to divisive it's income stream and take the constant pressure off of property taxes then the city needed to grow its commercial areas, but grow them with high development standards so to insure quality developments. Collegedale also has a great line of separation between its commercial areas and its University and residential areas with White Oak Mountain, thus keeping a degree of separation not offered in many other communities. It was also stated that because of our proximity to Chattanooga on three sides of our commercial area that alcohol will be served in the area anyway, just on the other side of the street.
To question four, the Planners stated that the city's current approach of trying to work with the citizen in question before citing them to court was a great approach and has proven beneficial in many Cities.
After the Planning Conference the Planners from Franklin, the City Commission, and City Manager Ted Rogers, were treated to a dinner at the home of Leanne and David Barto to end their day in our city.
David Barto