Neighborhoods are already picking up applications for public access gates, less than two weeks after the ordinance allowing the devices went into effect.
However, fewer neighborhoods have stopped by city offices than expected, according to Mukesh Kumar, director of planning and development.
“We’ve had at least three or four calls on it. Several groups have come by, gotten applications and taken them home,” he said. “(Turnout) is actually a little lower than anticipated.”
The ordinance took effect on October 12, a month after the city council approved amendments to the code.
City code was modified more than a year after the ordinance was expanded to allow all neighborhoods access to the devices.
Previously, only subdivisions with one entrance were eligible for public access gates.
Kumar did not know what neighborhoods had called about gates, saying that the city won’t know until applications are turned in.
“(When they call), they don’t have to say where they are from,” he said.
To apply, homeowners must submit a survey of the site where the gate would be located, plans for the gates construction and upkeep, landscaping plans, and map of those filing homestead exemption in the affected area.
The affected area could be the subdivision’s original plats or the boundaries of the homeowners association itself, according to the ordinance.
Plats are a residential development’s official boundaries, which are kept on file at the county chancery clerk’s office.
Neighbors themselves define the area, which then must be signed off on by the city’s Site Plan Review Committee.
“If we find there is a serious problem (with the boundaries) we will ask more questions,” Kumar said.
Residents must also submit documentation showing 75 percent of homeowners in the affected area support the gates.
Once the application is turned in, site plan review has 60 days to review it and determine whether the gates can move forward.
The committee includes engineers, architects, planning officials, police and firefighters.
The director of planning then makes a recommendation to the city council, which will then set a public hearing to allow opponents and supporters to sound off.
The council will then vote the proposal up or down, according to ordinance.
The council expanded the city’s initial public gating ordinance in 2016. However, city legal officials told the council later that year that it had quit accepting applications because of potential legal problems.
According to a deputy city attorney, the ordinance did not include due process for those who were opposed to the gates.
The new ordinance addressed that concern by requiring the council to hold a public hearing before voting on whether to approve or deny a gating request.
