Committees discuss downtown parking, road paving

During the planning and development committee portion of tonight’s city council committee meetings, a unanimous decision to increase the parking time limit on 18th Street South from two hours to three hours was made.

The decision to increase the time limit will have a final vote at next week’s full council meeting. The current ordinance will be amended rather than creating a new ordinance, and it will only affect parking on 18th Street, though other downtown parking time limits were also discussed.

Council members were adamant about the decision not affecting loyal, paying customers. Instead, employees and carpoolers who park for extended amounts of time on the street will be the ones who have to adjust their parking habits as the city begins enforcing ticketing for time limit violators more strongly. Parking fines are now $25 each.

The special issues committee also agreed upon accepting the dedication of a road at Edgewood Place to become a public road. If the city council agrees next week, Edgewood Blvd. will go from a private to public road with the city taking full responsibility for maintenance and garbage and trash pickup.

The 10 townhomes that line the road pay property taxes and developers believe it would only be fair for the road’s responsibility to fall on the city in return. One deciding factor was the detail of the road being freshly paved at the time of dedication.

This road, according to average durability, will not need to be repaved again for another 17 to 20 years. Without considering inflation, repaving the road would cost the city $7,000 in today’s dollars, developers said. The final decision will be contingent on the completion of the project and approval that it meets city standards.

The public safety committee also received a paving request for a private road serving around six homes on South Forrest Drive. Rather than accepting the road as a city road, the council has been asked to obtain an easement solely for repaving work. All homeowners would have to agree to the easement first.

“If we don’t do it, I don’t know when or how it gets done,” Ward 4 Representative Alex Wyatt said.

There was concern from council members that this would lead to similar requests from other private roads around the city, though they acknowledged that the road in question was in need of paving. The committee members also discussed trash and overgrowth issues on the hill where the street is built. The issue was carried over to give Wyatt more time to talk to residents about the issue.

Other business included:

• The finance committee had concerns over some budget transfers to cover overages in the police department’s cell phone bills. The city switched to Verizon on promises of better service and a less expensive plan, Ward 3 Representative Walter Jones said, though part of the overages come from the purchase of all-new equipment this year. Police Chief Tim Ross said the police had taken some cost-cutting measures, including turning off some phones, but committee members said they didn’t want officers to do anything that would diminish service. The committee chose to send the budget amendments to the council for approval, but they also decided to ask Brunson White, which is already reviewing the city’s IT costs, to also review its cell service plan.
• Discussion of odor issues in West Homewood was carried over in the special issues committee, as planned work at Barber’s dairy plant had to be delayed due to weather. The council has also received a draft of a new odor control ordinance to consider.
• The special issues committee also sent a request for two wireless utility poles to the council. The poles would be placed on Aquarius Drive behind the Barber plant and State Farm Parkway. The one on State Farm Parkway would also include a streetlight. The small cell broadband towers are intended to fill gaps in coverage for Sprint’s network.
• The public safety committee approved a new streetlight in the Lee Community Center parking lot, which will go to the city council for approval.
• The planning and development committee heard a presentation from Daniel Corporation about providing strategic planning, market research and other services to the city for future growth projects. The issue was referred to the finance committee for further consideration.
• Ross also updated the finance committee on plans for a new public safety headquarters on Bagby Drive. Initial bids to construct the project had come in higher than he wanted, so Ross has asked the architecture firm to come up with new design options. The police department also asked to reject all bids received for demolition and grading work, as they intend to make changes to the plans to reduce costs.
• Ward 2 Representative Mike Higginbotham asked the city’s engineering department to add the Forest Brook community to its sidewalk priority list. Connecting the neighborhood and its rising population of children to the rest of the city was important, Higginbotham said, and several residents have recently been organizing in support of sidewalks. Higginbotham suggested three locations: Forest Brook Drive from Forest Brook Circle to Huntington Ridge Road; Shades Glen Drive from Forest Brook Drive to Delcris Drive; and Delcris Drive from Shades Glen Drive to West Oxmoor Road.