News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
The Baxter Planning Commission beginning work on regulations that would require apartments built next to a road or other single family housing to erect fencing and/or landscaping.
Codes Director and Building Inspector Bob Lane said the ordinance is about maintaining the privacy of single-family homes and the people who live in the apartments. Lane said they want to give developers options to best remedy the issue.
“They got to have somewhere to put there stuff a little bit,” Lane said. “I mean they are going to have a little bit of stuff, and they are going to put it on the back of their unit and that may face a major highway and maybe not look as good as it should. That’s the kind of thing we’re after, to give them so privacy, aesthetically it look pleasing.”
Lane said the Planning Commission worked through numerous issues on the subject during recent meetings. He said he does not want to speak for the whole commission, but he thinks the ordinance passing is a “good possibility.”
“We’re just trying to be fair,” Lane said. “We’re not trying to do anything radical. We just need to protect the citizens of Baxter, especially single-family dwellings.”
“Baxter has not experienced a lot of growth until the last few years,” Lane said. “These are growing pains. We’re sort of having to adjust to whats going on. Usually, you have a problem you have to react to it, and we’re having some of that, but we’re trying to get a little bit ahead of that.”
Lane said the commissions desire to vote on it at the next meeting was a bit optimistic. He said it may take him two or three more months to get the ordinance ready for a vote.
“I don’t know that I can get it done that quick,” Lane said. “I worked on some of them today as a matter of fact. I’m researching other cities and looking at examples.”
