Jackson City Council chambers erupted into a 34-second round of applause last week, a sign of appreciation from residents whose long battle to restore the city’s public access gating ordinance was over.
The council voted 5-2 to amend the gating ordinance, again allowing neighborhoods across the city to have the devices.
The ordinance takes effect on October 12.
Ward One Councilman Ashby Foote was pleased with the council’s decision. He said the gates will help calm traffic and make communities safer for families. “A safer Jackson is a win-win for all Jacksonians and the metro area,” he said.
The four-page ordinance replaces the measure that was passed by the council in May 2016.
The ordinance still allows all neighborhoods to have access to the devices, but modifies the gating application process.
Among changes, neighborhoods or homeowners associations must obtain 75 percent approval from all homeowners in the affected area, up from 65 percent under the 2016 ordinance.
Also the ordinance provides opponents of gates an appeals process. The appeals process was included in the ordinance, in part, to give opponents of gates due process.
Last year, the city’s legal department told the council the ordinance needed to be put on hiatus because there was no appeals process for opponents.
In addition to due process, some were concerned how the 2016 ordinance defined a neighborhood.
Some opponents of the 2016 measure stated that subdivisions should be defined by their original plats.
Plats are a residential development’s official boundaries, which are kept on file at the county chancery clerk’s office.
The new ordinance allows neighborhoods to be defined not only by their original plats, but also the areas served by a particular homeowners group, which may or may not match existing plats, or “areas determined by the city staff to be distinctive and cohesive.”
The new measure was crafted after a recent public hearing, and after conversations between Foote, Ward Seven Councilwoman Virgi Lindsay, city legal and city planning.
Voting in favor of the measure were Foote, Lindsay, and Councilmen Charles Tillman, Melvin Priester and Aaron Banks.
Banks said that the ordinance is an application process, not a sign that all streets in the capital city will eventually be gated. “It’s just an application process. It will be up to professionals in engineering (and) planning to decide if something is justified or something is not right,” he said.
Opposed were council members De’Keither Stamps and Kenneth Stokes.
Full details of the ordinance can be found at northsidesun.com.
