Eastover leaders are studying installing public access gates, but the neighborhood has not decided where, when or if they’ll actually install the devices until studies are complete.
Recently, the neighborhood has been surveying potential locations for gates, which has raised the eyebrows of some neighbors.
However, leaders with the Greater Eastover Neighborhood Foundation (GENF) say they’re just in the preliminary phases, and no decisions on gates have been made.
“We’re just in the information gathering phase,” said Dana Robertson, GENF executive director. “It’s too early to say how this is going to proceed.”
Last year, the city council approved amending the city’s gating ordinance, ending a more than year-long struggle to re-write the code.
Among changes in the rules, groups interested in gates must obtain 75 percent support from property owners in an affected area. Also, gates cannot be placed along collector or arterial streets.
Previously, applicants only had to get 60 percent of those in the affected area to sign on.
Eastover had planned to install gates previously and had met requirements under the previous ordinance.
“We’re still gauging support and looking at potential locations before we decide to move forward,” Robertson said. “We are vetting the feasibility of different locations and are looking at a number of considerations, such as impacts on driveways, utilities and traffic.”
Eastover has approximately 400 homes on the east side of Ridgewood Road.
Neighborhood’s entrances include Quail Run at east Manor Drive, Meadowbrook Road at Dogwood Drive, Douglass Drive near Covenant Presbyterian Church, Eastbourne Place near Covenant and Eastover Drive at Ridgewood Road.
In September, the city council approved amending its gating ordinance.
The city approved allowing gates in 2011, but only for subdivisions with one entrance.
The ordinance was expanded in 2016 to allow all subdivisions to have access to the devices. The city stopped accepting applications that same year, citing problems with the ordinance.
Among concerns, city legal said the rules didn’t give opponents a way to protest applications.
New amendments were approved in September.
Since then, only one application for the devices has been submitted. In March, the Sun learned that the North Lake Homeowners Association submitted an application to install a gate along Kristen Drive.
