GRANITE QUARRY — Granite Quarry has a highway commerce zoning district centered around businesses on Highway 52, but interstate commerce has not been on the town’s radar for much of its recent history. That changed on Tuesday, as the city council voted to implement an interstate commerce zoning district and applied it to two properties.

The district, officially titled the Interstate Highway 85 Commercial District or C-85, is aimed at encouraging “pedestrian scale development along a secondary street network serving larger projects,” according to the approved zoning text amendment.

“I almost think (approving) this is a no-brainer in that we are wading into a completely different type of area than we have anywhere else in town. There are certain standards that have already been set for interstate highway commerce like intersections and so on nationwide. This looks to me like the natural evolution of Granite Quarry into those areas,” said Councilor Rich Luhrs.

The district was based off of the town’s Highway 52 district, said Planning, Zoning and Subdivision Administrator Rick Flowe. Planning officials took the usage chart and regulations for the C-52 district and modified them to best fit the interstate, said Flowe, removing usages such as funeral homes, instructional or vocational schools and home-based businesses off of the usage list for C-85.

Many of the property specifications are the same between the zoning districts, such as minimum lot sizes at 7,200 square feet or minimum street setbacks from the highway right-of-way at 24 feet.

The members of the council voted unanimously to approve the zoning text amendment after holding a public hearing. No Granite Quarry residents spoke during the hearing.

“When we passed (the Granite Quarry Development Ordinance) and we worked on it for a solid 10 months, we recognized that it wouldn’t be perfect and that we would have to always revisit and study and adjust and compromise. We’re doing just that,” said Mayor Brittany Barnhardt.

After approving the amendment, the council also voted to annex two properties along the interstate corridor and apply the C-85 designation to them.

The first property in question is located at the entrance to the Rowan Summit shopping center on Julian Road and is the site of a future Circle K station. The council held the public hearing on the annexation during a previous meeting, but decided to postpone a decision until the C-85 district had been implemented so it could be immediately applied to the property.

The annexation of the property was approved unanimously by the town council.

The second C-85 annexation brought before the town council concerned two properties, the Texas Roadhouse property located in the Rowan Summit shopping center as well as the multi-tenant commercial property located at the intersection of Rowan Summit Drive and Julian Road, which currently contains Salsarita’s, The Honey Baked Ham Company and other storefronts.

Both of the properties are owned by Rowan Summit, LLC, which is owned by Chattanooga-based developer Hutton Real Estate Holdings.

The annexation of those two properties was also approved unanimously by the town council.

During the presentation of the two annexations and the zoning text amendment, Flowe said that his department was having discussions about several more properties that could be brought before the town council “in the near future.”