Two more Northside neighborhoods have been approved for public access gates, while one other neighborhood is expected to go before the Jackson City Council next week.
Last week, the council approved gating applications for the Rollingwood Beautiful Neighborhood Association and the Village of Northpointe Homeowners Association.
And on November 6, the council will take up a request from the Massena Heights Homeowners Association for the installation of two gates.
Meanwhile, two other neighborhoods, Eastover and Heatherwood, have applications going through the Site Plan Review process.
In Rollingwood, gates will be located at Banyan Drive and Old Canton Road and at Westbrook Road and Yucca Drive.
“What the issue was for us was traffic. This will slow down traffic and eliminate cut-through traffic,” Rollingwood board member Patrick Crews said. “What it comes down to is safety.”
The measure was approved on a 5-1 vote, with Ward One Councilman Ashby Foote urging his colleagues to vote in favor of it.
Ward Three Councilman Kenneth Stokes voted against the petition. Council President Melvin Priester was out of town.
Several residents spoke in favor of the measure, but none spoke in opposition. Rollingwood is located off Old Canton and has approximately 97 lots.
The Northpointe gates will be located at Northpointe Parkway at Old Canton, Northpointe Parkway at Plantation Boulevard and Northpointe Drive at Waterford Drive.
Villages president Lisa Nettles urged the council to vote in favor of the gates. No one spoke in opposition.
The measure was approved on a 5-0 vote, as Stokes had stepped out of the meeting.
Up next, the council is expected to vote on an application from the Massena Heights Homeowners Association to install two public access devices, one in the middle of North Cheryl Drive between 2206 N. Cheryl and 4655 W. Cheryl, and on Heritage Hills Drive at Culleywood Drive, Planning Director Mukesh Kumar said.
The Greater Eastover Association is now making revisions to its gating application, after going through the first Site Plan Review meeting.
The Site Plan Review committee reviews all applications for gates, according to city ordinance. The group includes representatives from city departments, who offer input on how the gates will affect fire and police services, traffic patterns and the like.
“In Site Plan Review, they tell you what their concerns are and allow you to make revisions to your application,” Greater Eastover Executive Director Dana Robertson said. “We will start working on (our) revisions right away.”
Eastover hopes to install six gates: one at Ridgewood Road and Eastover Drive, Quail Run Road and East Manor Drive, Meadowbrook Road and Dogwood Circle, Lake Circle at Rhymes Place, Eastbourne Place at Rhymes and Douglass Drive behind Covenant Presbyterian Church.
The neighborhood submitted its application on October 5 and went before Site Plan on October 25.
The Heatherwood Homeowners Association’s also has yet to be cleared by Site Plan Review. “The fire department (has unresolved issues) and city legal are yet to sign off,” Kumar said. “No council date has been set.”
Kumar did not say where the gates were located.
Jackson’s gating ordinance was updated in 2017. Under new rules, gating applications must be approved by Site Plan before going to the city council for approval.
