Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly and his staff are celebrating what they consider to be a big win in their push to boost housing supply.

After working intensely for three years to build support for rewriting the city's decades-old zoning laws, Kelly's staff watched new zoning regulations pass the city council unanimously on Tuesday without fanfare or open criticism, at a time when mayors and governors across the country have struggled to get similar efforts off the ground.

The "historic zoning reform" will be "transformational," the city's news release after the vote said.

By allowing for different housing types within the same zone and reducing lot size requirements for a single house from from 7,500 to 5,000 square feet in the urban core — 7,500 to 6,000 in the suburbs — the new regulations could encourage the construction of more houses on single-unit lots and more townhomes and apartments wherever the new multifamily and mixed-use zones are eventually applied, Chris Anderson, who spearheaded the project for the mayor, said in an interview.

"Everyone who wants to live in Chattanooga should be able to live in Chattanooga. That has been the guiding principle for changing the zoning code," he said. "People are moving farther out. Firefighters can't afford to buy a house in the city."

With the new zoning regulations, nobody's lots or rights change, Anderson said. Instead, the new zones will give the same or greater entitlement by allowing more uses.
Still, the application of the new zones is yet to be determined, he said.

Homeowners who have been following the process closely don't yet know what it will mean for their neighborhoods, but the city has assured them that no property will be automatically rezoned as a result of the new laws.

"I am not really fearful, but I think it will mean different things to different people," said Janice Gooden, an East Chattanooga neighborhood leader following the process. "The intent is supposed to be more options."

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...Potential voters can face issues with going to the polls and casting a vote, local organizers said. Small things can add up and stop people from exercising their right to vote, Angélica Acevedo, an organizer with the advocacy group CALEB, said by phone.

"It's actually really difficult to vote — if you can't get off work, if you can't get short-term child care, if you don't have a ride, if you can't read," Acevedo said. "A lot of people don't know that you have the right, as a disabled person, to vote ... regardless of your IQ and your accessibility needs."

On Saturday, CALEB is set to hold a "Vote Together Day" at the Chris L. Ramsey Community Center in Brainerd, one of six early voting sites around the county.

The group received a $15,000 grant from Civic TN to help with voting efforts for the August election, organizer Alondra Gomez said by phone.

CALEB and other organizations plan to offer translation and interpretation services, child care and disability support.

"Language should never be a barrier to participating in democracy," Viri Marin, an organizer with the Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition Votes, based in Chattanooga, said by phone.

Voters can ask for accommodations like brighter light or a quiet place to fill out a ballot at any polling place, Acevedo said. All polling places are also required to meet federal disability accommodation requirements.

On Saturday, CALEB plans to offer rides to the polls from meeting points at East Lake Park, RISE Chattanooga, Grace Episcopal Church and the South Chattanooga library. Acevedo said they hope the event helps normalize asking for assistance and supporting others.

​"If we don't tell each other what's going on and what we need, how are we supposed to tell government officials and counties to budget for these things?" they said.

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