CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – A move to clarify the city’s rules on when sidewalks are mandatory cleared the Clarksville City Council on Thursday.

The sponsor of the ordinance, Councilperson Deanna McLaughlin, said last week during the council’s executive session that during the previous effort to update the sidewalk ordinance, there was a lot of discussion of gray areas in the rules, but they were never addressed. “At the request of some of the people that have to enforce the sidewalk ordinance, we put our heads together with the city attorney’s office to reduce the room for interpretation and the gray area,” said McLaughlin.

According to the amended sidewalk ordinance, sidewalks are mandatory:

  • In conjunction with all new commercial developments including multi-family.
  • Along any residential minor plat subdivision or greater as defined in the current edition of the Montgomery County, Tennessee subdivision regulations.
  • Along newly constructed public roads and dedicated permanent roadway easements, in all zoning districts with the exception of districts zoned M-2 and M-3 Industrial.

“When Karen Reynolds was on the City Council, she spent a lot of work doing research and doing a deep dive into overarching sidewalk ordinance rewrite. That didn’t pass, so what we really needed to do was to address what is open to interpretation as to where sidewalks are required and where they are not,” McLaughlin told Clarksville Now.

“When people start building, now it’s clearer for the Street Department and the Planning Commission. … Specifically, under the C-2 commercial zoning, you can also build R-4 multi-family residential apartments. It wasn’t clear in the sidewalk ordinance that if sidewalks are required in commercial, that also means R-4 multi-family residential, so that’s now clearly spelled out.”

| MORE: Council approves CDE borrowing money for growth-related upgrades, with rate hike of 1% to follow – ClarksvilleNow.com

The ordinance does say that in any development that had an active approved preliminary subdivision plat or an approved site plan as of May 6, 2007, and has construction plans approved by the Street Department as of May 6, 2010, placement of sidewalks will continue to be voluntary. However, if sidewalks are proposed, they must meet the requirements of the city code.

The ordinance’s first reading passed passed 12-1 with Councilperson Wanda Smith voting no.

| GET YOUR MORNING NEWS: Sign up for the free daily Clarksville Now email newsletter