Stronger Neighborhoods: Building a Community for the People

When it came time for Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke to build his first budget he implemented a process called Budgeting for Outcomes (BFO), which uses data and public input to determine funding for city departments and their nonprofit agency partners that are closely aligned with residents’ priorities for their neighborhoods.

But more importantly, he took this process to the people asking them “what does a stronger neighborhood look like to you?”

Over the last eight years it looked like parks, community centers, housing the homeless, honoring our roots, and filling our neighborhoods with arts and light.

Top Left to Bottom Right: Community members enjoy the new East Lake Park, Aerial view of the newly renovated Miller Park, Families enjoy a movie night at Miller Park, and the entrance of the new Southside Community Park.

Places for People:

Public areas can shape, build, and enhance a community. During his tenure, Mayor Berke helped create more than 150 acres of enhanced and new public spaces. He also imagined and implemented new neighborhoods and districts that would spurr development and enhance a community’s quality of life.

• Miller Park: In September 2018, hundreds of Chattanoogans gathered in the newly renovated $10.6 million Miller Park to celebrate a centerpiece of downtown. Since its reopening, Miller Park has played host to hundreds of events, including the Chattanooga Ballet, family movie nights, concerts, protests, and even impromptu soccer matches.
• East Lake Park: Known as Chattanooga’s first park, the 18.5-acre East Lake Park has worn many hats. Serving as a zoo, an urban fishing hole, and home to flocks of fowl. The park reopened in February after $2.9 million in renovations.
• Southside Community Park: Once the site of an old closed and rundown school, in 2017, the City added Southside Community Park in Alton Park to its list of public spaces. The park provides the community with ample green space for events and recreation, as well as a pavilion for community meetings, which even played host to a Burgers with Berke community meeting and an Office of Workforce Development canvassing event.

From left to right: A community member tests out the technology in the Avondale YFD Center library, Mayor Andy Berke speaks to a crowd at the Avondale YFD Center grand opening, and Mayor Berke speaks to reporters in the site of what would become the new Glass Farms Sav-A-Lot. // Photos by J. Adams.

• Avondale YFD Center: After years of dreaming, planning, and building, the Avondale community officially walked into their dream when the $10 million, state-of-the-art Avondale YFD Center opened in November 2019. The new Center could hold the old one in its gym alone and boasts the first library branch at a YFD Center.
• Passed Form Based Code: In 2016, the Berke administration developed and secured the passage of a new building and development standards to encourage walkability, density, and sustainability throughout the urban core. Chattanooga’s state-of-the-art “form-based code” has drawn national praise for supporting great urban design in a city renowned for its visionary planning and placemaking, and today is a practical blueprint for city officials and developers alike.
• Glass Farms Sav-A-Lot: The 2014 closure of Sunnyside Supermarket created a food desert in East Chattanooga’s Glass Farms neighborhood. Mayor Berke’s economic development team went to work with members of the community recruiting a new grocery operator, and a new Sav-A-Lot was opened to the public in late 2020. Following Mayor Berke’s philosophy of combining community development with economic development, CDOT made critical infrastructure investments around the Sav-A-Lot campus to make the area safer for pedestrians and more inviting for all families.
• Redesign of ML King Boulevard: 2018 was a big year for Chattanooga’s famed “Big Nine,” better known as ML King Boulevard and formerly known as Ninth Street. East ML King was fully redesigned to slow traffic, safely allow cycling, and create more parking spaces to support the district’s many small businesses. At the same time, construction began on the extension of West ML King from the core of downtown to the riverfront, utilizing an innovative public financing tool called tax increment financing (TIF) that funded the construction without impacting the City’s general fund.

From left to right: The new sculpture ‘Resurgence’ at Blue Goose Hollow and Mayor Andy Berke at the newly designed Wilcox Tunnel.

Honoring Our Roots:

Another aspect of cultivating a strong neighborhood is celebrating and honoring its culture. Through the creation of Public Art Chattanooga, dozens of public art projects and memorials have brought life to communities across our city.

CHA Creates: In 2019, Public Art Chattanooga set out to create a strategic plan to continue the investment of public art within our community for the next 10 years. They held dozens of meetings across the city to determine where to put projects next, what kind of art communities wanted to see, and innovative ways to ensure our own local artists were involved in the process.

• Painting the Town: Chattanooga has a number of murals that were created to honor and celebrate different cultures within our city. Some of the most iconic murals including
• “We Will Not Be Satisfied Until” by Meg Saligman, which covers 42,179 square feet along the 300 Block of MLK Boulevard. This is the largest mural in the Southeast.
• “Embrace the Future, Remember the Past” by Eduardo Mendieta, which serves as the bold and beautiful entrance of the recently renovated Milliken Park. The mural depicts the communal past, present, and future while making a hopeful statement about diversity, peace and love.
• “See Me Shine” by Greta McLain, which greets travelers as they pass through the Wilcox Tunnel. McLain worked with the community to develop a mural that revolves around the theme of a bright future for East Chattanooga families and children. The design incorporates both ends of the tunnel to celebrate the neighborhood and features portraits of children from the local community.
• Sculpting History: From Sculpture Fields to Highland Park, Public Art Chattanooga collaborated with the community to bring various pieces — temporary and permanent — to the City and many tell a story.
• “Resurgence: A Statement of Celebration” by Albert Paley, was installed in 2019 and features two free-standing sculptures that visually interact to draw visitors to the Riverpark. The piece is a material representation of Blue Goose Hollow’s industrial past with a symbolic and dynamic reach towards the future, creating an iconic presence on Chattanooga’s West Side.
• “The Ed Johnson Memorial” by Jerome Meadows is a historically significant piece being created to remember a darker time in our City’s history. This reflective memorial recognizes Ed Johnson, his brutal death and sacrifice, honors the heroic and historic efforts of Noah Pardon, Styles Hutchins and the African-American community that supported them, and commemorates the landmark Supreme Court case that changed the course of American history and civil rights. The City of Chattanooga partnered with a community group to help with funding, design and development of the project, which is scheduled to be completed later this year.
• Telling Chattanooga’s Stories: In 2019, Mayor Berke launched a new initiative to honor and preserve the people, places, and events that helped shape Chattanooga’s neighborhoods. Neighboroots funds three types of projects — historical markers, a performance grant, and public art project. Since its implementation the City has worked with neighborhoods like Glass Farms and Churchville on several historical markers and a performance art event.

A Stable Foundation:

As Chattanooga has grown, we’ve seen the gap widen when it comes to affordable and reliable housing, which puts a burden on residents to be able to afford important things like food, electricity, internet, and more. Sometimes that burden can become too much and families or individuals become homeless and trying to become rehoused can be a challenge.

From left to right: Mayor Andy Berke and community leaders discuss the Affordable Housing Fund and need for more housing in our community and Mayor Andy Berke signs an Executive Order forming the Chattanooga Interagency Council on homelessness.

• Housing the Homeless: The best way to provide a solid foundation for someone is to ensure they have a roof over their head. The City developed a Homeless Services Division to provide boots on the ground work helping individuals experiencing homelessness get housed, but most importantly, stay housed. Since 2013, more than 1,250 individuals have been housed with the help of one of our housing navigators.
• Ending Veterans Homelessness: In 2017, Chattanooga was one of the first cities in the nation to be certified as ending homelessness among veterans. The model the City used to do this is what they’ve adopted to decrease and ultimately end homelessness overall in our community.
• Chattanooga Interagency Council on Homelessness: In March 2018, Mayor Berke signed an executive order to form the Chattanooga Interagency Council on Homelessness (CICH), which is a group of organizations and individuals appointed by the Mayor who plan, coordinate, and accelerate our city’s response to ending homelessness.
• In December 2018, CICH released a Community Action Plan, which details a number of strategies and interventions to end homelessness in the city. Since its release, the Council chose Signal Centers as the backbone agency to support their work to implement the Action Plan. To date, investments in this plan have increased the number of individuals housed each year by 30% and increased the number of people that stay housed by increasing post-housing supportive services.
• Removing the Housing Burden: When a household is spending more than 30% of its gross annual income (income before taxes) on housing expenses, that household is considered to be housing cost burdened. During his 2018 State of the City address, Mayor Berke announced an Affordable Housing Fund that would be used exclusively to aid the creation of affordable and workforce housing throughout Chattanooga.
• PILOTs Providing Housing: Mayor Berke utilized the power of Payments In Lieu of Taxes (PILOTs) to help bring high-quality, affordable housing to Chattanooga. Since 2013, the City’s PILOT Program has helped produce or preserve nearly 1,000 affordable rental units for Chattanoogans.
• Supportive Housing: For many people struggling with mental health disorders finding affordable and stable housing can be a struggle. In 2019, the City started working with the AIM Center to build supportive housing for people with mental disabilities and those needing affordable housing. The project, Espero, will provide supportive services for those with disabilities and 60 affordable housing units in one of the most vibrant neighborhoods in Chattanooga.
• Stability in Crisis: Many families are just one fender bender or emergency room visit from being in a financial crisis. But in 2020 families were pushed to the brink when COVID-19 hit our community causing businesses to close their doors and employees go without pay. The City of Chattanooga established a fund to help renters and found quick-turn solutions to ensure families and children could stay connected to school and work.
• COVID-19 Rental and Utility Assistance Fund: When COVID hit Chattanooga, Mayor Berke took the necessary steps to protect the health of residents but that also meant temporarily closing businesses. The Department of Economic and Community Development set up a fund to help who were unemployed or lost hours due to COVID make rental or utility payments. Since March, the City has provided more than 700 rental payments.
• Maintaining Connections: After COVID hit, the City worked with EPB and Enterprise Center leadership to stand up dozens of wireless hotspots in areas around the city so students and families without access to reliable internet could still attend classes, meet work deadlines, and pay bills.

###