The Chattanooga-Hamilton County Regional Planning Commission voted Monday to amend code to designate a new “WN” downtown zone specifically for the Westside Community Evolves neighborhood development project.
The commission then voted to zone that property WN. It is 53 acres along West 12th Street surrounding Sheila M. Jennings Westside Park and James A. Henry Building, which will become a community center. The property is bound by West Martin Luther King Boulevard and West Main Street and includes public housing complexes College Hill Courts and Gateway Tower.
RPA Development Services Director Bryan Shults outlined the new WN zone for the commission, comparing it with the existing downtown zones DCX and UCX. Generally, the new WN zone is of a smaller scale with many allowances for the Westside Evolves neighborhood plan: locally owned retail, a restaurant, a grocery store, a community garden and trails, open space, connectivity, and ease for pedestrians. Buildings are shorter and closer to the streets, and sidewalks are smaller. The zone calls for a seven-story, or 100-foot height limit.
Until Monday the DCX zone had specified a 12-story limit, but the commission voted Monday to create new height allowances within existing DCX zoning: 14-, 16-, 18-, and 20-story buildings.
Westside architect Tinker Ma had requested three variances within the WN zoning that were denied by the commission:
Short-term vacation rentals are not automatically allowed in the new WN zoning. It was stated that STVRs are not compatible with the Westside Evolves plan that lays out conditions for a thriving Westside. It was stated also that the commission’s intent is not to immediately convert new and much-needed housing to STVRs.
The WN zoning is not exempt from the city’s downtown-wide parking space minimum of one to one and a quarter per dwelling. However, commissioners did call existing code “antiquated” and said they want to move away from parking minimums in favor of needed housing.
The WN zoning must widen its sidewalks in some places to be ADA-compatible.
The commission imposed a fourth condition on its approval. Single unit attached dwellings and single-unit attached dwellings with an accessory dwelling unit are included in the permitted WN-zone housing. Although the Westside development will not build these homes, the intent is that bordering properties may choose to rezone WN.
The commission’s recommendation now moves to the Chattanooga City Council for final approval.
OTHER BUSINESS
The commission also voted to create the new “WPK” zone for the Westside Evolves project, a park zone that will be implemented later when the final footprint of Sheila Jennings Park has been drawn.
The Bend mixed-use development, the Westside neighborhood’s western neighbor, spearheaded its own new zone in 2019. One Westside is a collaboration between the Chattanooga Housing Authority, The Bend, the city and the county on 300 acres connecting Main Street to the Tennessee River.
A similar creation of a new zone and then rezoning of the new Lookouts stadium property, cited as the 2400 through 2800 blocks of Broad Street, Chestnut Street and Sydney Street, was deferred for 30 days.